Battle of Okinawa and the N1K2-J Shiden-Kais

[SOLIDKREATE]

2nd Lt Alton Frazer’s FG-1D Corsair after an engagement with N1K2-J Shiden-Kais of the 343rd. Frazer miraculously managed to nurse his crippled Corsair back to base. Frazer's plane (number 441) in an engagement with some Shiden-kais which occurred the 22nd of June, 1945 over Okinawa. I feel very sorry for any of us goes up against that beast in the hands of a skilled pilot.

 

 

Frazer's FG-1D Corsair:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Book Reference: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA6SV4B17788&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleMKP-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleMKP-PC-_-pla-_-Games-_-9SIA6SV4B17788&gclid=CJ3T_63Bn88CFdKIfgodeNYLhg&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Enjoy my fellow Pacific War enthusiasts!

Edited September 21, 2016 by II./ZG1_SPEKTRE76

[CF-105]

Jesus, I thought I'd scoured the net for damaged aircraft that made it back home for my video, but that really takes the cake!

[ACG_KaiLae]

How'd he get rammed?

[ShamrockOneFive]

Wow... I've seen a lot of WWII photos. I've never seen that one before.

 

It's a testament to the engineering on that Corsair that its still in one piece!

[CF-105]

Wow... I've seen a lot of WWII photos. I've never seen that one before.

 

It's a testament to the engineering on that Corsair that its still in one piece!

 

With that damage, the plane certainly is not in one piece!  

[hames123]

Nothing a Seafire cannot handle, hopefully

[ShamrockOneFive]

With that damage, the plane certainly is not in one piece!  

 

Ish :D

[Urra]

Amazing. Never seen this one before. Thanks!

[hames123]

I guess that plane was a write-off?

[=362nd_FS=Hiromachi]

 

 

Book Reference: (...)

Biggest disappointment of this year purcheases, I've waited since it was announced but once I got it I immediately got disappointed by contents, nothing new and for the most part written in simplified Osprey manner. If one wants a good read about Shiden-Kai and its American opponents, than there is no better book than Genda's Blade :

 

 

 

It's a testament to the engineering on that Corsair that its still in one piece!

For every lucky guy there were ten or more who did not have that luck and went straight to Davy Jones locker. But indeed, Corsair and Hellcat could once in a while limp back with unbelievable damage.  

[von_Tom]

I doubt that is combat damage.  More likely a ground collision or landing accident or something.

 

von Tom

[=362nd_FS=Hiromachi]

It is a combat damage, it happened on June 22nd, 1945 in engagement over Amami Oshima where about 20 Corsairs from VMF-113, led by Major Orvin H. Ramlo carried a standard CAP barrier preventing any aircraft from flying to Okinawa. Among them was 2nd Lt. Alson C. Frazer flying a top cover in his FG-1D. VFM-113 was engaged by a group of less than 30 Shiden-Kais from 343rd Kokutai under command of Lt. Oshibuchi. 

Section in which was Alson Frazer got attacked form above by 7 N1K2-Js of 301st Squadron, during combat Corsair division broke into 1 vs 1 or 2 vs 1 dogfights. Frazer tried to rejoin his leader 1/Lt Johnson, but suddenly a George came into view on his right, flying to the left and Frazer managed to score a victory with a carefully led deflection shot. George canopy shattered and a large chunk of metal flew off the right wing root. Most likely Frazer hit Lt Keijiro Hayashi aircraft who was leading Japanese 1st division of the 2nd Chutai. Hayashi disengaged and hid in clouds, but as the aircraft was trailing a white smoke and way to Kyushu was long he never made it and was posted missing.

Here is how Frazer recalls the moment after scoring hits, when he realized that someone also got him in his sights:

"I  began to notice that my left wing was disintegrating. I heard no shots, I heard no gunfire. But became visually aware that my left wing was coming apart. So I realized that i had been hit, so I broke off my left turn and rolled out and pitched over and commenced to dive. I remember being quite frightened. My adrenaline was undoubtedly very high but my mental capacities were good. I just felt that I've been hit, OK, he won, I lost, now let's go home!"

Frazer was briefly followed by a Shiden-Kai which kept shooting, but eventually in clouds disengaged. Frazer left the dogfight and landed safely in his damaged machine.

But not everyone was so lucky that day as 343rd Kokutai returned to its home missing four pilots (Lt Keijiro Hayashi, CPOs Sueo Ishizue and Takashi Yanagisawa and PO 1/c Susumu Tsuchiya) while VMF-113 lost 2 pilots and 2 machines with three other damaged.

Unit's post action report was following:

"The enemy planes and pilots engaged were by no means of the type usually encountered. Their planes were good and the pilots skilled and aggressive. A very good formation was flown and maintained. Deception was used by sending in one division as decoy. The planes waiting above were grouped in four-plane divisions, sections roughly abreast, and divisions stacked. They attacked by divisions in the following manner: The whole division executed a chandelle to the left, thus starting a diving approach on opposite course with altitude advantage. The division then split into two sections, one going to each side of the target planes and executed high side runs simultaneously, completing the run by tailing in and joining." 

Following day marked also end of organized resistance on Okinawa.

 

Source: Genda's Blade by Henry Sakaida and Koji Takaki, pages 135-139.

[von_Tom]

I don't believe that damage was done in combat unless there was a ramming, and the pilot doesn't mention that.  I can understand him taking damage but not that,  Note also he has tanks on etc and that would not be the case after combat.

 

A bit of web searchng found a couple of posts here http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/archive/index.php?t-8363.html:

 

WO loss entries for 4 July:
04Jul45 FG-1D 88399 VMF-113 Ie Shima Empire 2nd Lt. Martin W. Harke
04Jul45 FG-1D 88441 VMF-113 Ie Shima Empire 1st Lt. Russell Hunchar  (this is the one we're looking at)

 

and

 

On 4 July Hunchar was rolling out after landing when he was hit from behind by 2Lt Harke in 88399 who had landed too fast and close. Both aircraft were damaged beyond repair.
If '441 was the aircraft flown by Frazer on 22 June the damage must have been minor.

 

Presumably someone can access the 505th losses records to check.

 

von Tom

Edited September 21, 2016 by von_Tom

[JtD]

Sounds reasonable, von_Tom. Totally looks like collision to me as well, plus I agree the drop tanks do not make sense when having been in combat and trying to nurse back a plane that damaged.

In the ground collision scenario everything adds up.

[HR_Tumu]

uao! great photo!

 

but... game parser counts kill ??

 

change to pacific will be very nice.

[=362nd_FS=Hiromachi]

This raises concerns indeed, but in regard to fuel tanks Frazer got that explained:

"We proceeded to drop our belly tanks, charge guns, and turn on the gunsight. But as I learned later, my tank failed to release. We tried to close to a firing range, but they just kept out of range. My recollection was that they were flying a circular path ..."

 

Interestingly, Hunchar had similar issue: "Unfortunately, my tank would not release!" he recalled."This concerned me, since I still had some fuel in it and I knew I was vulnerable. (...)"

Overall when I read couple more events, it seems Corsairs had really some issue with dropping their tanks. It happened once in a while in a Hellcat or any other machine, but Corsairs seemed to have this issue more notoriously.

 

One thing I noticed browsing through the mentioned chapter in Genda's Blade is the fact that pictures were provided by mentioned Olga Hunchar (I assume his wife). It's possible that pictures got confused or description provided with them was not correct. 

[Dutch2]

Biggest disappointment of this year purcheases, I've waited since it was announced but once I got it I immediately got disappointed by contents, nothing new and for the most part written in simplified Osprey manner. If one wants a good read about Shiden-Kai and its American opponents, than there is no better book than

 

Did read a couple of Osprey books and I think you are right on this, sure I is an quick reading but very limited on decent info and background.

 

The late war Japanese fighter are very impressing in performance do you have other book recomedations on late war Japanese fighters?

Edited September 21, 2016 by Dutch2

[SOLIDKREATE]

Thanks Hiromachi for that information!

[=362nd_FS=Hiromachi]

 

 

The late war Japanese fighter are very impressing in performance do you have other book recommendations on late war Japanese fighters?

Problem is that most of impressive performance numbers come from US estimation and calculation (sometimes close, sometimes not) but once you go into original aircraft documentation it gets complicated. Though its not the case here, since top speed attributed to N1K2-J is only 591 km/h at 5900 meters while aircraft manual gives 315 knots (583 km/h) at 3000 meters and 330 knots (611 km/h) at 6000 meters at rated power with de-rated engine (due technical issue engine was limited to lower boost and rpm) which probably is still not a top performance since engine rated altitude was closer to 6400 meters and with ram it could probably reach full speed at 6500-6700 meters. But I digress. 

 

Overall I can really recommend anything in English, there are quite nice books in Japanese but with those I have issue as well - I dont speak that language sufficiently. 

[TheElf]

Biggest disappointment of this year purcheases, I've waited since it was announced but once I got it I immediately got disappointed by contents, nothing new and for the most part written in simplified Osprey manner. If one wants a good read about Shiden-Kai and its American opponents, than there is no better book than Genda's Blade :

 

 

 

For every lucky guy there were ten or more who did not have that luck and went straight to Davy Jones locker. But indeed, Corsair and Hellcat could once in a while limp back with unbelievable damage.  

 

 

Concur.  Love this book.