The Akutan Zero, also known as Koga's Zero (古賀のゼロ) and the Aleutian Zero, was a Mitsubishi A6M2 Model 21 Zero Japanese fighter aircraft piloted by Petty Officer Tadayoshi Koga, that crash-landed on Akutan Island, Alaska Territory, during World War II. It was found intact by the Americans in July 1942 and became the first Zero acquired by the United States during the war that could be restored to airworthy condition.Rearden, Enemy . It was repaired and flown by American test pilots. As a result of information gained from these tests, American tacticians were able to devise ways to defeat the Zero, which was the Imperial Japanese Navy's primary fighter plane throughout the war.
The Akutan Zero has been described as "a prize almost beyond value to the United States",Rearden, Fighter, p. x. and "probably one of the greatest prizes of the Pacific War". Japanese historian and JASDF lieutenant general Masatake Okumiya stated that the acquisition of the Akutan Zero "was no less serious" than the Japanese defeat at the Battle of Midway, and that it "did much to hasten Japan's final defeat".Okumiya, pp. 160–63 Nonetheless, historian John Lundstrom and others challenge "the contention that it took dissection of Koga's Zero to create tactics that beat the fabled airplane".Lundstrom, p. 535. The Akutan Zero was destroyed in a training accident in 1945. Parts of it are preserved in several museums in the United States.
Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter
The Second Sino-Japanese War began in 1937. Attacks by Chinese fighter planes on Japanese bombers led the Japanese to develop the concept of fighter escorts. The limited range of the Mitsubishi A5M "Claude" fighter used to escort the bombers caused the Japanese Navy Air staff to commission the Mitsubishi A6M Zero as a long-range land- and carrier-based fighter.Rearden, Fighter, pp. 1–3.
The Zero, which first flew in 1939, was exceedingly agile and lightweight, with maneuverability and range superior to any other fighter in the world at that time.Oxford guide, "Fighters" entry, pp. 278–79. The Zero's supremacy in flight range is given in table 2, sourced to W. Green, Warplanes of the Second World War, 1961. Maneuverability is described as "excellent ... Of the early Allied fighters, only the F4F Wildcat could oppose it on anything like equal terms". In 1940 Claire Lee Chennault, leader of the Flying Tigers, wrote a report to warn his home country of the Zero's performance. However, United States Department of War analysts rejected the Chennault report as "arrant nonsense" and concluded the performance attributed to the Zero was an aerodynamic impossibility.Handel, p. 139. With the coming of war, the U.S. fighting services learned better; the Zero's maneuverability outperformed any Allied fighter it encountered for the first two years of the war.Oxford Guide, "Air power" entry, p. 17. "It was largely thanks to these blows, and the superiority of the Japanese Navy's Zero fighter to anything that it was to meet for two years to come, that the Japanese were able to sweep through the ill-defended British and Dutch possessions in South-East Asia without the Allies being able to interrupt their communications". According to American flying ace William N. Leonard, "In these early encounters and on our own we were learning the folly of dogfighting with the Zero".Rearden, Fighter, p. 14.
To achieve this dogfighting agility, however, Japanese engineers had traded off durability. The Zero was very lightly built; it had no armor and no self-sealing fuel tanks. According to American author Jim Rearden, "The Zero was probably the easiest fighter of any in World War II to bring down when hit ... The Japanese ... were not prepared to or weren't capable of building more advanced fighters in the numbers needed to cope with increasing numbers and quality of American fighters".Rearden, Fighter, p. 10. The Zero was the primary Japanese Navy fighter throughout the war. During the war, the Japanese manufactured roughly 10,500 Zeros.Bergerud, p. 205
Nine Zeros were shot down during the attack on Pearl Harbor.Rearden, Fighter, p. 28. From these wrecks, the Allies learned that the Zero lacked armor and self-sealing fuel tanks, but little else about its capabilities.Rearden, Fighter, p. 29. The Zero's flight performance characteristics—crucial to devising tactics and machinery to combat it—remained a mystery.
Three other downed Zeros were available to the Allies before the Akutan Zero was recovered. In February 1942, a Zero (serial number 5349) piloted by Hajime Toyoshima crashed on Melville Island in Australia after the bombing of Darwin; it was heavily damaged. Another Zero, piloted by Yoshimitsu Maeda, crashed near Cape Rodney, New Guinea. The team sent to recover the plane erred when they chopped off the wings, severing the wing spars and rendering the hulk unflyable.Rearden, Fighter, p. 30. The third came from China, where Gerhard Neumann reconstructed a working aircraft from a partly intact Zero (serial number 3372) that had landed in Chinese territory plus salvaged pieces from other downed Zeros. Neumann's aircraft did not reach the United States for testing until after the recovery of the Akutan Zero.
Petty Officer Koga's final mission
In June 1942, as part of the Japanese Midway operation, the Japanese attacked the Aleutian islands, off the south coast of Alaska. A Japanese task force led by Admiral Kakuji Kakuta bombed Dutch Harbor on Unalaska Island twice, once on June 3 and again the following day.
Tadayoshi Koga (September 10, 1922 – June 4, 1942), a 19-year-old flight petty officer first class, was launched from the Japanese aircraft carrier as part of the June 4 raid. He flew A6M2 Zero type 21, with red tail marking DI-108 and a yellow fuselage band, serial number 4593 , Koga was part of a three-plane section; his wingmen were Chief Petty Officer Makoto Endo and Petty Officer Tsuguo Shikada. Koga and his comrades attacked Dutch Harbor, and are believed to be the three Zeroes that shot down an American PBY-5A Catalina flying boat piloted by Bud Mitchell, and strafed its survivors in the water, killing Mitchell and all six of his crewmen. In the process, Koga's plane (serial number 4593) was damaged by small arms fire.Rearden, Fighter, p. 54.
Tsuguo Shikada, one of Koga's wingmen, published an account in 1984 in which he claimed the damage to Koga's plane occurred while his section was making an attack against two American Catalinas anchored in the bay. This account omits any mention of shooting down Mitchell's PBY. Both American and Japanese records contradict his claims; there were no PBYs in the bay that day. However, his claims do match American records from the attack against Dutch Harbor the previous day (June 3). Rearden noted, "It seems likely that in the near half-century after the event Shikada's memory confused the raids of June 3 and June 4 ... It also seems likely that in his interview, Shikada employed selective memory in not mentioning shooting down Mitchell's PBY and then machine-gunning the crew on the water".
It is not known who fired the shot that brought down Koga's plane, although numerous individuals have claimed credit. Photographic evidence strongly suggests it was hit by ground fire. Members of the 206th Coast Artillery Regiment, which had both 3-inch anti-aircraft guns and .50-caliber machine guns in position defending Dutch Harbor, claimed credit, in addition to claims made by United States Navy ships that were present.Williwaw War: The Arkansas National Guard in the Aleutians in World War II by Donald Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon, 1992, University of Arkansas Press, p. 188.. See also, Never Give Up! A History of the 206th Coast Artillery (Anti-aircraft) Regiment of the Arkansas National Guard in the Second World War by William E. Maxwell, Jr. 1992 Physical inspection of the plane revealed it was hit with small arms fire: .50 caliber bullet holes and smaller, from both above and below.Rearden, Fighter, p. 56Rearden, Fighter, pp. 67–68.
Crash The fatal shot severed the return oil line, and Koga's plane immediately began trailing oil. Koga reduced speed to keep the engine from seizing for as long as possible.Rearden, Fighter, p. 57.
The plane's landing gear mired in the water and mud, causing the plane to flip upside down and skid to a stop. Although the aircraft survived the landing nearly intact, Petty Officer Koga died instantly on impact, probably from a broken neck or a blunt-force blow to his head. Koga's wingmen, circling above, had orders to destroy any Zeros that crash-landed in enemy territory, but as they did not know if Koga was still alive, they could not bring themselves to strafe his plane. They decided to leave without firing on it. The Japanese submarine stationed off Akutan Island to pick up pilots searched for Koga in vain before being driven off by the destroyer .
(Note: The description above is solely based on "Koga's Zero" by American author Jim Rearden.Japanese is a language that is highly context-dependent compared to English, particularly in conversation, where subjects, complements, and objects are often omitted. As a result, when a native English speaker, such as Rearden, interviews a native Japanese speaker through an interpreter, it sometimes happens that the English-speaking interviewer unconsciously constructs their own interpretation based on subjective views, rather than accurately reflecting what the interviewee intended to convey.The claim that the Japanese Zero fighter pilots were ordered to destroy their wingmen if they fell into enemy territory has not been confirmed by Japanese researchers or supported by Japanese records, including the memoirs of Zero fighter pilots published in succession in Japanese several years after the war. Furthermore: 1) Attacking a downed aircraft from the air would have been technically difficult, even for highly skilled pilots. 2) Even if they managed to hit it, completely destroying an already downed aircraft would have been extremely challenging. 3) This suggests that to truly prevent a Zero from falling into enemy hands for analysis, it would need to be shot down while still in flight. 4) In military contexts, including Japan's, even if accidental, shooting a comrade during combat would result in a court-martial.)
Recovery
The crash site, which was out of sight of standard flight lanes and not visible by ship, remained undetected and undisturbed for over a month. On July 10, 1942, an American PBY Catalina piloted by Lieutenant William "Bill" Thies spotted the wreckage. Thies's Catalina had been patrolling by dead reckoning and had become lost. On spotting the Shumagin Islands, he reoriented his plane and began to return to Dutch Harbor by the most direct course: over Akutan Island. Machinist Mate Albert Knack, who was the plane captain (note: the term "plane captain" in US Navy usage refers to an aircraft's assigned maintenance crew chief, not the pilot-in-command), spotted Koga's wreck. Thies's plane circled the crash site for several minutes, noted its position on the map, and returned to Dutch Harbor to report it. Thies persuaded his commanding officer, Paul Foley, to let him return with a salvage team. The next day (July 11), the team flew out to inspect the wreck. Navy photographer's mate Arthur W. Bauman took pictures as they worked.Rearden, Fighter, pp. 61–62.