Scholz, old friend, you're barking up the wrong tree here. The 1939-42 Japanese pilots took on pilots from Russia, China, England, the US, Holland, Australia and probably some others I can't think of, and handily beat them all. They were superb pilots in superb equipment. As someone mentioned, their glory lasted only through the end of 1942, and after that most of them were gone.
- oldman
I don't think so, old friend. As Yamamoto said he would run wild for six months to a year. This was only made possible by the total inadequacies of the allied units in the Pacific at the time. America really didn't have a first rate fighter at this time. P-39, P-40, F2F, F4F... The most modern fighter America had in service were the earliest versions of the P-38, the E model. However, it was
much worse for the British Commonwealth...
Fighting a life and death struggle with Germany in Europe and North Africa had the British stretched to the limits. They had stripped their Far-East colonies of men and machines to fight the Germans. What was left was a ragtag force of antiquated bi-planes and imported second rate machines. The most modern aircraft fielded by the British in South-East Asia was probably the Bristol Blenheim.
The British fought gallantly however, and perhaps most gallant were the aircrew of No. 36 and 100 squadrons, who were fated to have to fight the Japanese with obsolete Vickers Vildebeests that dated their ancestry back to 1928. No. 36 was the first to go into action attacking a Japanese cruiser on December 8, the first day of the war (Singapore is on the other side of the International Date Line). The Vildebeests were used as day bombers attacking troops landing in Malaya, and they were not without success; on January 24, 11 Vildebeests and three Fairey Albacores attacked a key bridge at Labia and destroyed it.
However, much of the rest of the time, the Vildebeests were decimated. No action was more heroic, and tragic, that the attack that RAF and Commonwealth forces made against the Japanese convoy approaching Endau on January 26, 1942. Of the 21 Vildebeests and three Albacores from the two squadrons involved in the two raids that day on the convoy, ten were shot down, two damaged beyond repair, and ten others damaged. The surviving Vildebeests were withdrawn to Java on January 31, and flew their last major combat operations against the Japanese transports and landing craft at Rembang on February 28. The squadrons were disbanded by March 1942.
In January 1942 51 tropicalized Hurricane Mk IIBs arrived in Singapore that had been hurriedly disassembled and shipped when war broke out with Japan. 24 pilots accompanied them. That same month, 12 Hurricane Mk IIB were supplied to the Dutch forces on Java. This tiny force of what by European standards were already obsolete fighters were largely destroyed by the Summer of 1942.
The first Spitfires to be deployed in the Far East were two PR Mk.IV photo reconnaissance versions that operated out of bases in India. They arrived in October 1942. The first combat Spits didn't arrive until February 1943, and then they were 1941 era Spit V's that were unsuited for service in Europe. Even in early 1944, the Spit V was the most numerous Spitfire in the Far East.
In the South-East Asian theatre, the first Spitfire Vs reached three squadrons on the India-Burma front in November 1943.
So yes old friend, the Japanese were superb pilots in superb equipment... but only compared to the pitiful state of the Allied forces arrayed against them at the time.
...
Time to end this? Or should we do another round of Spit vs. 109 next?
