0:02 In 1940, American intelligence started
0:04 hearing rumors about a Japanese fighter
0:06 that was cutting through Chinese planes
0:09 with a kill ratio of 12:1. At first, it
0:10 sounded impossible since the reports
0:12 described an aircraft that combined
0:15 great speed, firepower, long range, and
0:17 surprising agility allinone. Many Allied
0:19 observers thought it had to be an
0:21 exaggeration because no fighter like
0:23 that should exist. The truth, however,
0:25 would turn out to be far more disturbing
0:27 for Allied fighter pilots. This plane
0:30 was the A6M0. It had been developed in
0:33 the late 1930s as Japan pushed to
0:34 dominate the Pacific and its designer
0:37 Jiro Horoshi of Mitsubishi was told to
0:38 create a fighter for the Imperial
0:41 Japanese Navy that could fly over vast
0:43 distances, operate from carriers, and
0:46 still outmaneuver any opponent. By 1940,
0:48 the Zero was faster than Britain's
0:51 Spitfire or Germany's Messid BF 109. It
0:54 had a combat radius of about 1,900
0:56 miles, and it could land on the narrow
0:58 rolling deck of a carrier at sea. For
0:59 Japan, it was nothing short of the
1:01 perfect aircraft to take on two powerful
1:04 navies at once. The Zero's design showed
1:06 how Japan valued agility and range more
1:08 than protection. Its frame was made from
1:09 a light aluminum alloy, and the whole
1:13 aircraft weighed just under 2,000 kg. It
1:14 carried a dependable but fairly light
1:16 engine, and when that was combined with
1:18 large wings and a slim body, the result
1:21 was a fighter with superb agility. Its
1:24 weapons were two 7.7 mm machine guns in
1:26 the cowling and two 20 mm cannons in the
1:28 wings which was considered heavy
1:30 firepower for a fighter in 1940.
1:32 However, to get these qualities, some
1:35 sacrifices had to be made. Since the
1:36 aircraft also had to operate from
1:39 carriers, its wingspan was limited to 12
1:41 m. Nakajima, one of Japan's other major
1:43 aircraft builders, decided these
1:44 requirements were impossible and
1:47 abandoned the project. Horoshi pressed
1:48 on though, and he used several advanced
1:51 design features. thin elliptical wings
1:53 that reduced drag. Flush riveting that
1:55 gave the surface a smooth finish and an
1:57 all- metal frame made possible by heat
1:59 treatment methods learned from Germany.
2:01 To save even more weight, holes were cut
2:03 into some of the structural parts. The
2:05 trade-offs were obvious. The Zero skin
2:08 was only about 1.2 mm thick at its
2:09 strongest points, such as the forward
2:11 fuselage and wing edges, and in places
2:13 like the rear, it was just half a
2:15 millimeter. Other nations added armor
2:16 around the engine, cockpit, and fuel
2:18 tanks, but the Zero carried none of
2:20 that. and it also lacked self-sealing
2:22 fuel tanks. A single hit to the fuel
2:24 system often meant the plane went up in
2:26 flames. The cockpit itself was
2:28 noticeably smaller than Western designs,
2:30 shaped for the typically shorter
2:32 Japanese pilot. Every detail showed the
2:34 same doctrine at work. Japan wanted a
2:36 light, longrange fighter flown by pilots
2:38 trained to avoid being hit rather than
2:40 one built to survive damage. And while
2:41 this worked brilliantly at first, it
2:43 would also set the stage for the Zero's
2:45 eventual downfall. Because its outer
2:47 skin was so thin, a pilot could dent it
2:50 just by stepping onto the wrong spot. To
2:51 solve this, the designers added special
2:53 footholds and handles that stayed hidden
2:56 inside the fuselage. Before climbing in,
2:57 the pilot pressed a button to pop them
2:59 out, used them to board, and then they
3:01 folded back in so the surface stayed
3:03 smooth. Another clever feature was a set
3:05 of concealed flotation bags. These were
3:07 tucked into the fuselage and could be
3:08 filled with air taken from the engine
3:10 intake, which gave the aircraft a chance
3:13 to stay afloat if it went down at sea.
3:15 Nothing in these details suggested a
3:16 throwaway weapon. Yet, within a few
3:19 short years, that's exactly how the Zero
3:21 would often be used. Japanese pilots
3:23 called it the Ryzen, or simply zero.
3:25 After the Imperial year 2600, which
3:28 matched 1940, the year it entered
3:30 service. When the Zero appeared in real
3:33 numbers during 1940 and 1941, Allied
3:35 observers could no longer dismiss it as
3:37 rumor. It stood as proof of Japan's
3:38 sudden rise to dominance in the skies,
3:41 and the allies were about to find out in
3:43 the most brutal way what that dominance
3:45 meant. Now, the thing is, the Zero's
3:47 true potential was unlocked in the hands
3:49 of its pilots. And at first, these were
3:51 no ordinary men. And so, before we get
3:53 to the story of the Zero's first combat
3:54 victories, we need to take a look at
3:56 them. Japanese doctrine held that a
3:59 fighter was only as good as the men who
4:00 flew it. And in the early years of the
4:02 war, those men were among the best in
4:04 the world. Actually, you could freely
4:06 say they were the best in the world.
4:08 Japanese naval aviation prioritized
4:10 quality over quantity. So, the Imperial
4:12 Japanese Navy ran a cadet program that
4:14 was brutal and highly selective. Some
4:16 years, only about 100 young men made it
4:18 through. The standards were horrific,
4:19 but the result was a small core of
4:21 pilots who had the skill and discipline
4:23 to handle an aircraft whose only real
4:24 protection was speed and
4:26 maneuverability. There was no room for
4:28 error. That logic worked, at least in
4:30 the beginning, because the Japanese
4:31 aviators could get the most out of the
4:34 Zero's agility, range, and firepower. In
4:35 the first months of the Pacific War,
4:37 this combination of aircraft and pilot
4:39 was devastating, and it was right at the
4:41 peak of that early superiority, with
4:43 both the pilots and their aircraft at
4:45 their strongest that the Zero drew its
4:47 first blood in combat. In July 1940,
4:49 Chinese forces were still flying mostly
4:52 old biplanes and early monoplanes such
4:53 as the Soviet-built polycarpovs, and
4:55 many of these were poorly maintained and
4:58 often flown by undertrained pilots. So
4:59 unsurprisingly, the Zero cut through
5:01 them with ease, shooting down everything
5:04 in its path. However, the real shock to
5:05 the world that didn't believe Chinese
5:07 reports was now about to come as the
5:09 Allies would meet the Zero for the first
5:11 time in the opening strike of the
5:14 Pacific War. On December the 7th, 1941,
5:16 Japanese carriers launched a surprise
5:18 attack on Pearl Harbor with the goal to
5:20 [ __ ] the USPacific fleet, cement
5:22 Japan's control of the region, and
5:23 discourage American interference in
5:25 Asia. However, the attack brought the
5:27 United States into the war that same
5:29 day. During the Pearl Harbor raid, the
5:31 Zero flew as escort for the bombers,
5:33 keeping watch over them as they struck
5:35 at battleships and airfields. America
5:37 did have fighters on the islands, mostly
5:40 P40 Warhawks and P36 Hawks, with only a
5:42 few Wildcats. Just a handful managed to
5:44 get airborne in time. Those pilots
5:46 fought hard and men like George Welch
5:48 and Kenneth Taylor in their P40 even
5:50 shot down several Japanese aircraft, but
5:52 they were heavily outnumbered. On paper,
5:54 the Warhawks were faster at top speed
5:56 than the Zero, but they simply couldn't
5:58 come close to its maneuverability or the
6:00 skill of the Japanese pilots. In the
6:02 months that followed, Japanese naval air
6:03 power rolled across the Pacific and
6:05 Southeast Asia, and the Zero was at the
6:08 center of it all. In April 1942, during
6:10 the Indian Ocean raid, Japanese carriers
6:12 struck British bases at today's Sri
6:13 Lanka. They never caught the main
6:15 British fleet, but their attacks still
6:17 caused serious losses. Zeros clashed
6:19 with Hawker Hurricanes, and time after
6:21 time managed to outturn them in dog
6:23 fights. Allied pilots learned quickly to
6:25 fear the aircraft because in those early
6:27 months, the Zero just seemed like it
6:28 couldn't be touched. From Pearl Harbor
6:31 through the campaigns of early 1942, the
6:33 Zero was the dominant naval fighter of
6:35 the Pacific. And for a while, it truly
6:37 ruled the skies. Yet that rule wouldn't
6:39 last forever. By the summer and fall of
6:42 1942, during the Guadal Canal campaign,
6:44 American pilots had worked out new
6:46 tactics that started to level the odds.
6:48 Even the F4F Wildcat, which was
6:50 realistically outdated at this point,
6:51 could hold its ground when flown with
6:53 discipline. The myth of the Invincible
6:55 Zero was beginning to break apart, but
6:57 not before hundreds of Allied aircraft
6:59 were shot down by it. However, what
7:01 happened at Guadal Canal was only the
7:02 beginning because the Allies were about
7:04 to turn the Zero strength into its
7:06 greatest weaknesses. During the Illutian
7:08 Islands campaign, a Japanese pilot named
7:10 Tadayoshi Koga took off from a carrier
7:13 to raid Dutch Harbor in Alaska. His Zero
7:15 was damaged by ground fire that cut an
7:16 oil line, and he tried to make an
7:18 emergency landing on Akatan Island,
7:20 which had been chosen as a pickup site
7:22 for downed airmen. But the ground there
7:24 was a soft bog. And when Koga touched
7:26 down, the landing gear dug in, the Zero
7:28 flipped onto its back, and Koga was
7:30 killed instantly. The aircraft though
7:32 remained largely intact. For weeks, it
7:34 sat there untouched until an American
7:36 patrol plane spotted the wreck. Recovery
7:38 teams hauled the crashed fighter out,
7:39 then shipped it back to San Diego.
7:41 There, engineers and mechanics carefully
7:42 restored it to flight condition, and
7:44 they now had a gold mine of information
7:46 on the Zero's strengths and weaknesses,
7:48 which was soon to be used against it.
7:50 When American test pilots flew the
7:51 Captured Zero, they saw that at high
7:53 speeds, the aileron stiffened and
7:56 rolling and diving became unstable since
7:57 the pilot didn't have hydraulic
7:59 assistance for controls. It rolled more
8:01 easily to the left than to the right,
8:02 which made its movements predictable in
8:04 combat. The second weakness was its
8:07 fragility. With such thin skin, no armor
8:09 for the pilot, and no self-sealing fuel
8:11 tanks, even a short burst of fire could
8:13 set the plane ablaze. The third was its
8:15 carburetor. The Zero used a float type
8:17 carburetor which meant that during zero
8:18 gravity maneuvers the engine could flood
8:21 and stall. Early British Spitfires had
8:22 suffered from the same flaw but theirs
8:24 had been corrected while the Japanese
8:26 never made that upgrade. All of these
8:28 findings went straight into Allied
8:30 training manuals and now pilots finally
8:32 had clear and practical rules for how to
8:34 fight the Zero. They were instructed
8:36 never to try to turn with a Zero at low
8:37 speeds because that was its biggest
8:39 advantage. Instead, they were told to
8:42 use speed, altitude, and diving attacks,
8:43 the so-called boom and zoom tactics,
8:45 where the Zero couldn't follow Allied
8:47 fighters. With this knowledge, even the
8:49 rugged but less nimble Wildcat could
8:51 survive. But this was just the beginning
8:53 of the end for the Zero. Because the
8:54 data from the captured Zero was passed
8:56 directly to Grumman, where engineers
8:58 were finishing the F6F Hellcat. The
9:00 final touches were designed with the
9:02 Zero's weaknesses in mind, and the
9:03 Hellcat was now eager for its first
9:05 combat. But even before this stroke of
9:07 luck with the captured zero or the
9:09 arrival of new American fighters,
9:10 Lieutenant Commander John S. Jimmy
9:12 Thatch had already been working on an
9:13 answer. Reading early reports that
9:15 described a Japanese fighter with
9:17 unmatched maneuverability. He knew his
9:19 F4F Wildcat squadron would not survive
9:21 long if they tried to fight on the
9:23 enemy's terms. At his kitchen table,
9:24 using nothing more than a few
9:26 matchsticks, Thatch sketched out a
9:28 formation that might give his slower,
9:30 heavier Wildcats a chance. The next day,
9:32 he tested it in the air. The idea was
9:34 straightforward. Two fighters would fly
9:36 together and if one was chased, both
9:37 would turn toward each other. The Zero
9:39 locked onto the first aircraft would
9:41 suddenly find itself flying straight
9:43 into the guns of the wingman. Simple as
9:45 it was, the tactic worked and it quickly
9:47 became known as the Thatche. It was
9:49 tested in combat at the Battle of Midway
9:51 in June 1942 and later over Guadal
9:53 Canal. The maneuver gave American pilots
9:55 one of their first reliable counters to
9:57 the Zero and it remains a valid tactic
9:59 even today. Midway itself proved
10:01 decisive. The Japanese carrier force was
10:03 crippled and with it the aura of
10:05 invincibility surrounding the Zero began
10:07 to fade. Meanwhile, things were getting
10:09 worse for the Zero's pilots. By early
10:12 1943, new Allied fighters were arriving
10:15 in the Pacific in large numbers. The P38
10:17 Lightning brought range and firepower.
10:19 The Corsair was fast and rugged, and
10:22 above all came the F6F Hellcat, designed
10:24 to beat the Zero in almost every way.
10:26 When the Hellcat entered combat, the
10:28 balance shifted sharply. In the Battle
10:31 of the Philippine Sea in June 1944, US
10:33 pilots destroyed Japanese aircraft in
10:35 such numbers that the battle became
10:37 known as the Great Mariana's Turkey
10:38 Shoot. Japanese losses were
10:40 catastrophic, and with each month, the
10:42 gap only widened. Yet, even in decline,
10:44 the Zero could still be dangerous. No
10:46 Allied aircraft could match its turning
10:48 ability at low speed, and overconfidence
10:50 was sometimes costly. A skilled Japanese
10:52 veteran could still punish a careless
10:54 opponent. But with discipline, tactics,
10:56 and modern aircraft, the Allies had the
10:58 upper hand. Japan had entered the war
10:59 hoping for a short conflict that would
11:02 force America to negotiate. Instead, it
11:03 found itself trapped in a long war of
11:06 attrition it could not win. Request for
11:08 a successor to the Zero, had gone out as
11:10 early as 1940, but development was slow.
11:13 The A7M Repu, finally flown in May 1944,
11:15 was exactly the kind of fighter Japan's
11:17 aviators needed. Fast and heavily armed,
11:19 but only nine were built. Other
11:21 projects, like the Shiden and the Ryden,
11:23 spread Japan's limited resources thin.
11:25 And while the Allies focused on a few
11:27 effective types and mass production,
11:29 Japan tried to develop more than 90
11:31 major designs. However, none could
11:34 change the outcome. By 1944, the tide
11:36 had fully turned. The Zero, once the
11:37 miracle of the Pacific, was now
11:39 outmatched and outproduced. But still,
11:42 the worst part was yet to come. Japan's
11:43 pilots, who were once the pride of the
11:45 Navy, were being lost much faster than
11:47 they could be replaced. As the war
11:49 dragged on, Japan's pilot training
11:51 outright collapsed. Fuel shortages,
11:53 limited facilities, and constant losses
11:55 meant that by late 1944, some naval
11:57 pilots entered combat with as little as
11:59 40 flight hours. Their American
12:01 counterparts averaged 500. The United
12:03 States was turning tens of thousands of
12:05 well-educated young men into trained
12:07 aviators every year, while Japan was
12:09 producing only a few thousand and to a
12:12 much lower standard. Elite veterans were
12:14 by this point almost all dead, and they
12:15 were being replaced by inexperienced
12:17 recruits in aging fighters. For an
12:19 aircraft that depended on skill to
12:21 survive without armor, this was
12:23 disastrous. Because of all this, Japan
12:25 turned to a desperate tactic that became
12:28 infamous as kamicazi. Yes, they could
12:29 damage and even sink some ships, but
12:31 most of them were shot down long before
12:33 they could do anything, and they burned
12:35 through what little remained of Japan's
12:36 air strength. The final proof came in
12:39 August 1945. The B29 bombers that
12:41 dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and
12:43 Nagasaki flew without escort. There was
12:45 no resistance left in the air. In that
12:47 moment, the Zero story ended. It had
12:49 come full circle. First as the symbol of
12:51 Japan's rising power in the Pacific, and
12:53 at the end as the emblem of an empire
