Spitfires V Zero

Hello All,

Months ago I recall a thread about the performance of Spitfires against Zeros over Australia. The November 2005 issue of Aviation History has a biography of Wing Commander Caldwell, listing his actions. I started to compile the statistics of his Pacific actions, put the letter in the drafts folder, and forgot about it. I haven't looked if anyone else has crunched these numbers, but according to the article, this is how official RAAF / IJN records record the battles.

Wing Commander Caldwell took over 1st Fighter Wing (54 Sqd RAF, 452 & 457 Sqds RAAF) with Spitfire VBs at Darwin in January, 1943. They opposed IJN 753 Kokotai Bettys and 202 Kokotai Zeros and a single appearance by IJAAF.

I am not considering the six Ki-46s recon planes downed, nor a handful of bombers downed later in night raids. Only totaled are planes confirmed destroyed during fighter-escorted attacks, be they shot down or destroyed by damage or combat reasons, i.e., running out of gas. After all, why compare the fighter-VS-fighter results if there were no escorts?

The numbers below will be listed as RAAF/IJN, formatted as numbers committed, kills claimed and actual losses.

The first Spitfire VS Zero fight was March 2, when 24 Spits engaged 30 raiders. RAAF claimed 3, IJN claimed 3; the real score was 0/0.

Mar. 15 was 27 V 45, 9/11 and 1/4.
May 2: 33 V 44, 7/21, 0/14
9th & 28th: ?, ?, 5/3

IJA showed up with 61st Sentai Ki-49, 76th Sentai Ki-48 and 59th Sentai Ki-43. Spits attacked with 46 against 49, claims of 14 to 9, actual 5 (three crashed back at base) against the loss of 3 Spits.

June 28 was 42 V 36, 6/?, actual 0/0.
June 30: 38 V 23+ (no number of Zeros given): 7/16, 0(1 written off at base)/5

The final tally shows the RAAF claimed 46 kills but lost 29 Spitfires, while the Japanese claimed 60 Spitfires and only lost 12 bombers and fighters, four of these crashing/written off after returning to base. Thus, the Spitfire over Darwin lost 29 for only 8 air-to-air, bested almost 4 to 1 by Zeros and Oscars.

All the best to you,
Fred Boucher

I am quite surprised at that ratio, considering how lightly armoured the Zeros were.
Andy

Hi Andy,

Armor is only needed if you are being shot at--and hit! The Spit pilots, many veterans against the Germans and Italians, some aces like Caldwell, and flying one of the best fighters in the world, had an attitude. USMC ace Joe Foss, fresh from downing 25 Japanese over Guadalcanal, met the Spit pilots and judged them to be arrogant. He warned them not to discount the Zero, and told them if they were caught alone, RUN! He said one told him 'that wouldn't be quite cricket'.

The Spit pilots tried t dogfight the Zeros. That explains their losses.

Hi Fred and Andy

That a very interesting information on the Spitfire and Zero and the losses. Some thing that i had never thought about
What i do find some what annoying when people like Joe Foss,albeit a fantastic Ace makie comments like "arrogant " and "attitude " they were all young men and i think that you had to have attitude and be a bit some what arrogant, i accept that you can pay the ultimate price for that approach. Which no doubt it would appear the RAAF did.
My mums brother was a fighter pilot with the RAF and flew spitfires, when i spoke to her tonight i asked her what Roy was like as a pilot and as a young man during that difficult time she said he was fearfully confidant for a 22 year old, he was shot down and killed during the Battle of Brittian.
I suppose after having over 20.000 citizens killed in the bombing of London and the home counties and at that time being very much "The Few ' i think perhaps they earned the right to be fearfully confident, and have attitude which i think Joe Foss might have inadvertantly mistaken for arrogance.
Sorry for going off the subject but very often there is never anyone to speak up for the all the brave pilots who died with attitude and for the sake of "Thats not quite cricket " they had learnt over the skys of the UK
that there was no where to run.
Cheers Chris

Hi Chris,

I concur.

However, I think Foss may have been differentiating between confidence borne of being young, well-trained, experienced fighter pilots, and the arrogance that they had nothing to learn.

The same arrogance that was systemic in the USAAC and USN towards the Japanese before the war. The same arrogance that was displayed towards the AVG pilots by the newly arrived 10th A.F. pilots in the CBI; they treated the AVG boys--before & after AVG became 14th A.F.--with disdain as mercenarries and mavericks. The question was settled when the AVG challenged the new guy's best pilot to a dogfight with the worst pilot of the AVG, and all bets were on the AVG pilot.

The more I read about fighter ops, the more cases I run across of vets trying to tell the new guys what to look out for, and the new guys believing their home front training was better than what the "been-there, done-that" vets could impart. That is what I suspect was meant.

Regards,

Fred

Hi Fred
A very interesting and informative response and i thank you for your reply, and as that now puts clearly into perspective Joe Fosss observation of the pilots that he met.
Thank you for your threads on this subjct and evoking some very interesting conversations with my mum about her brother.
Thanks Fred cheers Chris

Very interesting figures. Thanks for sharing.

I had also read somewhere, though now I can't recall, that the Spitfire pilots who first engaged the Zeroes very much felt that the Zero would be "a cup of tea" after fighting the Germans. The one thing that I understand you couldn't do with a Zero was to try to get into a turning battle with it. That played up to it's strength. The Spit pilots, rightly thinking they had one of the best dog fighting planes in the world, felt that they could out turn the Zero. In that, unfortunately they were dead wrong. This is NOT to take anything away from them, they just didn't know, nobody at the time really knew, how good the Zero was.