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Why 90% of "Zero" Pilots Died | Unbelievable true stories | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: Why 90% of "Zero" Pilots Died
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The A6M Zero was a revolutionary Japanese fighter aircraft that initially dominated the Pacific skies due to its exceptional agility, range, and firepower, but its design sacrifices ultimately led to its downfall against evolving Allied tactics and superior production capabilities.
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In 1940, American intelligence started
hearing rumors about a Japanese fighter
that was cutting through Chinese planes
with a kill ratio of 12:1. At first, it
sounded impossible since the reports
described an aircraft that combined
great speed, firepower, long range, and
surprising agility allinone. Many Allied
observers thought it had to be an
exaggeration because no fighter like
that should exist. The truth, however,
would turn out to be far more disturbing
for Allied fighter pilots. This plane
was the A6M0. It had been developed in
the late 1930s as Japan pushed to
dominate the Pacific and its designer
Jiro Horoshi of Mitsubishi was told to
create a fighter for the Imperial
Japanese Navy that could fly over vast
distances, operate from carriers, and
still outmaneuver any opponent. By 1940,
the Zero was faster than Britain's
Spitfire or Germany's Messid BF 109. It
had a combat radius of about 1,900
miles, and it could land on the narrow
rolling deck of a carrier at sea. For
Japan, it was nothing short of the
perfect aircraft to take on two powerful
navies at once. The Zero's design showed
how Japan valued agility and range more
than protection. Its frame was made from
a light aluminum alloy, and the whole
aircraft weighed just under 2,000 kg. It
carried a dependable but fairly light
engine, and when that was combined with
large wings and a slim body, the result
was a fighter with superb agility. Its
weapons were two 7.7 mm machine guns in
the cowling and two 20 mm cannons in the
wings which was considered heavy
firepower for a fighter in 1940.
However, to get these qualities, some
sacrifices had to be made. Since the
aircraft also had to operate from
carriers, its wingspan was limited to 12
m. Nakajima, one of Japan's other major
aircraft builders, decided these
requirements were impossible and
abandoned the project. Horoshi pressed
on though, and he used several advanced
design features. thin elliptical wings
that reduced drag. Flush riveting that
gave the surface a smooth finish and an
all- metal frame made possible by heat
treatment methods learned from Germany.
To save even more weight, holes were cut
into some of the structural parts. The
trade-offs were obvious. The Zero skin
was only about 1.2 mm thick at its
strongest points, such as the forward
fuselage and wing edges, and in places
like the rear, it was just half a
millimeter. Other nations added armor
around the engine, cockpit, and fuel
tanks, but the Zero carried none of
that. and it also lacked self-sealing
fuel tanks. A single hit to the fuel
system often meant the plane went up in
flames. The cockpit itself was
noticeably smaller than Western designs,
shaped for the typically shorter
Japanese pilot. Every detail showed the
same doctrine at work. Japan wanted a
light, longrange fighter flown by pilots
trained to avoid being hit rather than
one built to survive damage. And while
this worked brilliantly at first, it
would also set the stage for the Zero's
eventual downfall. Because its outer
skin was so thin, a pilot could dent it
just by stepping onto the wrong spot. To
solve this, the designers added special
footholds and handles that stayed hidden
inside the fuselage. Before climbing in,
the pilot pressed a button to pop them
out, used them to board, and then they
folded back in so the surface stayed
smooth. Another clever feature was a set
of concealed flotation bags. These were
tucked into the fuselage and could be
filled with air taken from the engine
intake, which gave the aircraft a chance
to stay afloat if it went down at sea.
Nothing in these details suggested a
throwaway weapon. Yet, within a few
short years, that's exactly how the Zero
would often be used. Japanese pilots
called it the Ryzen, or simply zero.
After the Imperial year 2600, which
matched 1940, the year it entered
service. When the Zero appeared in real
numbers during 1940 and 1941, Allied
observers could no longer dismiss it as
rumor. It stood as proof of Japan's
sudden rise to dominance in the skies,
and the allies were about to find out in
the most brutal way what that dominance
meant. Now, the thing is, the Zero's
true potential was unlocked in the hands
of its pilots. And at first, these were
no ordinary men. And so, before we get
to the story of the Zero's first combat
victories, we need to take a look at
them. Japanese doctrine held that a
fighter was only as good as the men who
flew it. And in the early years of the
war, those men were among the best in
the world. Actually, you could freely
say they were the best in the world.
Japanese naval aviation prioritized
quality over quantity. So, the Imperial
Japanese Navy ran a cadet program that
was brutal and highly selective. Some
years, only about 100 young men made it
through. The standards were horrific,
but the result was a small core of
pilots who had the skill and discipline
to handle an aircraft whose only real
protection was speed and
maneuverability. There was no room for
error. That logic worked, at least in
the beginning, because the Japanese
aviators could get the most out of the
Zero's agility, range, and firepower. In
the first months of the Pacific War,
this combination of aircraft and pilot
was devastating, and it was right at the
peak of that early superiority, with
both the pilots and their aircraft at
their strongest that the Zero drew its
first blood in combat. In July 1940,
Chinese forces were still flying mostly
old biplanes and early monoplanes such
as the Soviet-built polycarpovs, and
many of these were poorly maintained and
often flown by undertrained pilots. So
unsurprisingly, the Zero cut through
them with ease, shooting down everything
in its path. However, the real shock to
the world that didn't believe Chinese
reports was now about to come as the
Allies would meet the Zero for the first
time in the opening strike of the
Pacific War. On December the 7th, 1941,
Japanese carriers launched a surprise
attack on Pearl Harbor with the goal to
[ __ ] the USPacific fleet, cement
Japan's control of the region, and
discourage American interference in
Asia. However, the attack brought the
United States into the war that same
day. During the Pearl Harbor raid, the
Zero flew as escort for the bombers,
keeping watch over them as they struck
at battleships and airfields. America
did have fighters on the islands, mostly
P40 Warhawks and P36 Hawks, with only a
few Wildcats. Just a handful managed to
get airborne in time. Those pilots
fought hard and men like George Welch
and Kenneth Taylor in their P40 even
shot down several Japanese aircraft, but
they were heavily outnumbered. On paper,
the Warhawks were faster at top speed
than the Zero, but they simply couldn't
come close to its maneuverability or the
skill of the Japanese pilots. In the
months that followed, Japanese naval air
power rolled across the Pacific and
Southeast Asia, and the Zero was at the
center of it all. In April 1942, during
the Indian Ocean raid, Japanese carriers
struck British bases at today's Sri
Lanka. They never caught the main
British fleet, but their attacks still
caused serious losses. Zeros clashed
with Hawker Hurricanes, and time after
time managed to outturn them in dog
fights. Allied pilots learned quickly to
fear the aircraft because in those early
months, the Zero just seemed like it
couldn't be touched. From Pearl Harbor
through the campaigns of early 1942, the
Zero was the dominant naval fighter of
the Pacific. And for a while, it truly
ruled the skies. Yet that rule wouldn't
last forever. By the summer and fall of
1942, during the Guadal Canal campaign,
American pilots had worked out new
tactics that started to level the odds.
Even the F4F Wildcat, which was
realistically outdated at this point,
could hold its ground when flown with
discipline. The myth of the Invincible
Zero was beginning to break apart, but
not before hundreds of Allied aircraft
were shot down by it. However, what
happened at Guadal Canal was only the
beginning because the Allies were about
to turn the Zero strength into its
greatest weaknesses. During the Illutian
Islands campaign, a Japanese pilot named
Tadayoshi Koga took off from a carrier
to raid Dutch Harbor in Alaska. His Zero
was damaged by ground fire that cut an
oil line, and he tried to make an
emergency landing on Akatan Island,
which had been chosen as a pickup site
for downed airmen. But the ground there
was a soft bog. And when Koga touched
down, the landing gear dug in, the Zero
flipped onto its back, and Koga was
killed instantly. The aircraft though
remained largely intact. For weeks, it
sat there untouched until an American
patrol plane spotted the wreck. Recovery
teams hauled the crashed fighter out,
then shipped it back to San Diego.
There, engineers and mechanics carefully
restored it to flight condition, and
they now had a gold mine of information
on the Zero's strengths and weaknesses,
which was soon to be used against it.
When American test pilots flew the
Captured Zero, they saw that at high
speeds, the aileron stiffened and
rolling and diving became unstable since
the pilot didn't have hydraulic
assistance for controls. It rolled more
easily to the left than to the right,
which made its movements predictable in
combat. The second weakness was its
fragility. With such thin skin, no armor
for the pilot, and no self-sealing fuel
tanks, even a short burst of fire could
set the plane ablaze. The third was its
carburetor. The Zero used a float type
carburetor which meant that during zero
gravity maneuvers the engine could flood
and stall. Early British Spitfires had
suffered from the same flaw but theirs
had been corrected while the Japanese
never made that upgrade. All of these
findings went straight into Allied
training manuals and now pilots finally
had clear and practical rules for how to
fight the Zero. They were instructed
never to try to turn with a Zero at low
speeds because that was its biggest
advantage. Instead, they were told to
use speed, altitude, and diving attacks,
the so-called boom and zoom tactics,
where the Zero couldn't follow Allied
fighters. With this knowledge, even the
rugged but less nimble Wildcat could
survive. But this was just the beginning
of the end for the Zero. Because the
data from the captured Zero was passed
directly to Grumman, where engineers
were finishing the F6F Hellcat. The
final touches were designed with the
Zero's weaknesses in mind, and the
Hellcat was now eager for its first
combat. But even before this stroke of
luck with the captured zero or the
arrival of new American fighters,
Lieutenant Commander John S. Jimmy
Thatch had already been working on an
answer. Reading early reports that
described a Japanese fighter with
unmatched maneuverability. He knew his
F4F Wildcat squadron would not survive
long if they tried to fight on the
enemy's terms. At his kitchen table,
using nothing more than a few
matchsticks, Thatch sketched out a
formation that might give his slower,
heavier Wildcats a chance. The next day,
he tested it in the air. The idea was
straightforward. Two fighters would fly
together and if one was chased, both
would turn toward each other. The Zero
locked onto the first aircraft would
suddenly find itself flying straight
into the guns of the wingman. Simple as
it was, the tactic worked and it quickly
became known as the Thatche. It was
tested in combat at the Battle of Midway
in June 1942 and later over Guadal
Canal. The maneuver gave American pilots
one of their first reliable counters to
the Zero and it remains a valid tactic
even today. Midway itself proved
decisive. The Japanese carrier force was
crippled and with it the aura of
invincibility surrounding the Zero began
to fade. Meanwhile, things were getting
worse for the Zero's pilots. By early
1943, new Allied fighters were arriving
in the Pacific in large numbers. The P38
Lightning brought range and firepower.
The Corsair was fast and rugged, and
above all came the F6F Hellcat, designed
to beat the Zero in almost every way.
When the Hellcat entered combat, the
balance shifted sharply. In the Battle
of the Philippine Sea in June 1944, US
pilots destroyed Japanese aircraft in
such numbers that the battle became
known as the Great Mariana's Turkey
Shoot. Japanese losses were
catastrophic, and with each month, the
gap only widened. Yet, even in decline,
the Zero could still be dangerous. No
Allied aircraft could match its turning
ability at low speed, and overconfidence
was sometimes costly. A skilled Japanese
veteran could still punish a careless
opponent. But with discipline, tactics,
and modern aircraft, the Allies had the
upper hand. Japan had entered the war
hoping for a short conflict that would
force America to negotiate. Instead, it
found itself trapped in a long war of
attrition it could not win. Request for
a successor to the Zero, had gone out as
early as 1940, but development was slow.
The A7M Repu, finally flown in May 1944,
was exactly the kind of fighter Japan's
aviators needed. Fast and heavily armed,
but only nine were built. Other
projects, like the Shiden and the Ryden,
spread Japan's limited resources thin.
And while the Allies focused on a few
effective types and mass production,
Japan tried to develop more than 90
major designs. However, none could
change the outcome. By 1944, the tide
had fully turned. The Zero, once the
miracle of the Pacific, was now
outmatched and outproduced. But still,
the worst part was yet to come. Japan's
pilots, who were once the pride of the
Navy, were being lost much faster than
they could be replaced. As the war
dragged on, Japan's pilot training
outright collapsed. Fuel shortages,
limited facilities, and constant losses
meant that by late 1944, some naval
pilots entered combat with as little as
40 flight hours. Their American
counterparts averaged 500. The United
States was turning tens of thousands of
well-educated young men into trained
aviators every year, while Japan was
producing only a few thousand and to a
much lower standard. Elite veterans were
by this point almost all dead, and they
were being replaced by inexperienced
recruits in aging fighters. For an
aircraft that depended on skill to
survive without armor, this was
disastrous. Because of all this, Japan
turned to a desperate tactic that became
infamous as kamicazi. Yes, they could
damage and even sink some ships, but
most of them were shot down long before
they could do anything, and they burned
through what little remained of Japan's
air strength. The final proof came in
August 1945. The B29 bombers that
dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki flew without escort. There was
no resistance left in the air. In that
moment, the Zero story ended. It had
come full circle. First as the symbol of
Japan's rising power in the Pacific, and
at the end as the emblem of an empire
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