The Pilots Who Failed to Protect Admiral Yamamoto

it is April 18th of 1943 and over the South Pacific one of the most dramatic and famous events of World War II is about to take place two Betty Bombers and six zero Fighters have taken off from raal and are headed to the banville area where they are bound to be intercepted by American p38s but much has been published on this on the dramatic code breaking and shootdown of Admiral isoku Yamamoto but here we will focus on something different an aspect of this mission that has been mostly forgotten in addition to the two Betty Bombers

lost on this sorty were six young men flying A6 m30 and assigned to escort their esteemed leader they would however fail to do so allowing the most valuable asset of the Japanese Navy to be lost in the jungle of the South Pacific and this brings us to the question who were these men and what really happened to them today we will cover these aviators who landed and survived the tragic Mission and how each of them after such a devastating lost charged themselves with redeeming themselves through a glorious death but also with shooting down as many

American fighters as possible let's dive into the history follow these Aces and see what happened to the men who lost Yamamoto in mid April of 1943 on the island of rabal Pilots of the 204th Air Group had been fighting valiantly in the South Pacific taking on the Americans over guad canal and the other islands of the area here some of their best Pilots had already begun to rack up kills Learning to Fly what was commonly considered one of the best planes in the war one morning however they were called in for a briefing that would

not be the normal sorty this assignment was quite different and carried even more honor than the normal Mission here six Pilots were selected and assigned along with their A6 m30 and told that on April 18th they would receive the privilege of escorting the Admiral isoku Yamamoto on a routine inspection flight from rabal to enville the selected Pilots would be Lieutenant tekashi morisaki lead pilot flyer first class Kenji yanaga chief petty officer Toyo mitsu suino flyer first class shoichi sugita chief petty officer yashim hadaka and petty officer first class yasushi okazaki all six of these zero

Pilots accepted their assignment graciously and prepared to embark on the escort Mission the very next day but thousands of miles away across the Pacific they had no idea that a nightmare was developing a few days prior a radio message was sent out by yamamoto's assistant letting the smaller airbases of the area know of the incoming inspection by the Admiral unfortunately for the Japanese this transmission would be intercepted and deciphered by American code Breakers revealing that the prized Admiral was going to be very briefly within range of American landbased fighters as the plan was put together

everyone knew that it was a long shot the flight plan would take the Admiral over heavily defended Japanese areas teaming with Fighters and anti-aircraft plus the opportunity to intercept was at the absolute limits of the range of only the P38 Lightning the longest ranged Allied fighter in the Pacific War at this time so even if the Americans did time it perfectly and safely locate the expected transport flight American fighters would have only 15 minutes of combat time in the Target area before they had to turn back for guad canal the plan would involve two groups

of p38s one flying high and one below Colonel John Mitchell and his group of 12 aircraft were scheduled to fly top cover while one other group of four interceptors would be assigned to the low-level attack position these would be the shooters they were assigned to fly just off the surface of the water at 50 ft of altitude and on radio silence to avoid detection they had been directed to meet yamamoto's flight from underneath and behind this unit would be called The Killer flight and would be led by Captain Thomas G lamier on the morning of

April 18th both the Japanese and American aircraft began to take off from their respective bases for the planned routes only one of them however was aware of the others plans as the flight of p38s from The 339th Fighter Squadron took off a couple of brief problems hit the killer flight of aircraft two of their p38s had issues and had to be replaced with other aircraft from the top cover group these Replacements would be Lieutenant beesby Holmes and Lieutenant Raymond Hine now joining captain lamier and Lieutenant Rex Barber once this was sorted out and everyone one

was in formation both groups of p38s were off for their sneak attack to banville at the same time a few hundred miles away the 6 zero Pilots along with their precious betties were also just starting up and taking off here the Japanese were heading across a stretch of the Pacific Ocean before they would arrive over banville this flight consisted of two g4m Betty Bombers and the six s SC scorting Fighters these zero quickly split up into two groups of three aircraft the idea of their formation saw the betties flying below and in the center with

the zeros above and slightly behind to block the typical attack from American fighters a diving strike from higher altitude to defend against this the first group of zeros was here on the left hand side above and behind Petty officer toyoo suino on the left petty officer shoichi sugita on the right the current kill leader of the 204th Air Group and then the flight leader Lieutenant Takeshi morisaki who was another seasoned pilot on the right hand side petty officer yasushi okazaki was on the left petty officer Kenji yanaga on the right who was an ace with

seven or eight kills at this time and chief petty officer yashim hadaka as element leader another Ace with around 20 kills at this point Lieutenant morisaki had his fighters in what he thought was an ideal defending position and all was going as planned his zeros kept a crisp formation and began to scan the Horizon for threats but for now all they saw was open ocean on the other side though the American Lightnings were proceeding as planned on schedule and under radio Silence with the killer Squadron just off the surface of the water with hopes of

pulling off a miracle lampier Barber Holmes and Hine kept the tide formation and blazed across the Pacific Time ticked away and soon both flights were nearing their destination at around 9:30 a.m. oto's transport plane had arrived over banville Island in fact their destination had just been cited up ahead so the transports began to lose altitude as they were approaching the Airfield at balali at this time in the flight the escorting zeros were also now above the island Jungle of banville still scanning the Skies over the Pacific side they were after all at this point fairly

confident that on the low chance any threat would come it would certainly come from the sea unfortunately for them they were mistaken the p38s of the 339th were at this moment arriving on the scene but they were not coming from the sea with the low attack position of the killer flight the attack would instead come from 6:00 and low both positions which were not suspected by the escorting zeros and furthermore at this point their green camouflage now made them even more difficult to detect blending in with the jungle as they approached yamamoto's aircraft the attack

was about to begin with the killer flight approaching low and the top cover flight at 20,000 ft above directing and protecting the operation there were two bombs instead of one we've been told theight before it be one so I looked for the 60 death start I looked behind there were three looked behind there there was three more and the gear was in one of those 6 zeros they had not seen us at that point so I turned immediately turned I knew when I saw the 6 Z I knew we had I knew we had our

Target boog's 11:00 High we saw and that was uh really woke us all up really and there they were uh 6 Zer and two bombers as Mitch said we only planned on one well we climbed up as Mitchell said and then Mitch said go get him Tom and so Tom and and his wife broke off and headed toward the bombers well we could see these three zeros coming down and we knew that just about the time that we rolled in on the bombers that they would be right on our tail and so uh Tom turned

sharply left and up into the zeros as they were coming down uh I continued after y airplane I shot into his right engine through the fuselage into his left engine the right engine uh was smoking badly at that time I started back into the fuselage again and as I centered my fire on the fuselage he seemed to stop in midair as far as I was concerned and and came up uh on more or less on his One Wing and I shot over him just missing his upturn wing uh I looked back and uh he had

leveled out but he was smoking very badly and going down but this time he was less than uh 300 ft from the top of the trees as the p38s blazed in flyer first class Kenji yanaga recalled this moment in detail I was on the right side farthest away from yamamoto's aircraft I remember that as we approached the Airfield that is when it all happened we were delayed in spotting the p38s as their color made them very hard to see over the jungle I can recall that by the time the Squadron leader saw them they were

already very near the bombers we immediately turned down to repel the American fighters and we managed to do that but as we climbed up to prepare for the second wave I looked down and yamamoto's brain was already smoking and going down into the jungle the second plane the staff plane was going towards the ocean to the right as the killer flight opened up their attack before his plane ever crashed Yamamoto was almost certainly already dead in the burst from the American aircraft Isoroku Yamamoto was hit in the head with a round from one of the

p38s he was likely killed instantly but if not would have certainly been killed in the crash a few seconds later for the escorting zeros it all happened too fast by the time any of them could react delayed in seeing the p38s due to their location and camouflage it was too late the zero Pilots immediately dove in and Scattered the p38s but they were clearly not here to dog fight the Americans turned away and ran leaving the engagement having already accomplished their goal so the Japanese Pilots then also turned and landed back on their own Airfield

that is all except for Kenji yania who saw an opportunity as the Americans began back to head towards quad Canal we also turned for balai but then I saw one P38 cruising at 9,000 ft alone I decided to go after it and there I fired striking the aircraft those American fighters did not bust into frames easily but it did start smoking and gashing gasoline after after I hit it at that point I turned back for base where I was the last to land because I chose to go after this enemy aircraft this P38 would be

that of Lieutenant Raymond Hine who was one of The Replacements in the killer flight during this Mission he was seen smoking badly in one engine but at last contact was still flying trying to make it home unfortunately he would not return turn and was never seen again the sole American loss of this Mission upon landing and then returning to rabal the six escorting zeros who had all survived unscathed felt as if they had failed they were not however assigned any blame for the incident as it was clearly pre-planned and they were desperately outnumbered but it

did change things for the young Pilots after such a brutal loss under their watch their purpose in the war changed drastically not only were they now fighting for Honor but they held themselves responsible and thus charged themselves with fighting wildly with the challenge of shooting down as many American aircraft as possible and perhaps most importantly redeeming themselves through a glorious death for Japan this Redemption would in fact be achieved very quickly for more than one of the escort pilots on June 5th of 1943 around 1 month later a state funeral would be held for Admiral

isoku Yamamoto an event that was rare and closely followed by all of Japan they had lost debatably their most valuable leader so it was a moving and somber occasion appropriately at the same time thousands of miles away in the Southwest Pacific six Pilots of the 204th Air Group were preparing to restore their honor less than 48 hours after yamamoto's funeral the 204th Air Group would begin a massive aerial campaign against the guad Canal area the same region that the dastardly p38s had come from on April 18th the zero pilots from that mission would no doubt

be fueled with a little more anger than normal after hearing of their Admiral's funeral just a day before their assignment for today June 7th of 1943 would see their zeros outfitted with twin bombs underneath their wings and assigned to Glide bomb an Allied Airfield a few hours later the zeros were in the air along with dive bombers and were nearing their target right on Q American fighters were scrambled to intercept the zero Pilots of the 204th initiated their Glide attacks from an altitude of around 20,000 ft dropping their bombs on the island Airfield below but

just as they pulled up from their bombing runs enemy Fighters arrived these would consist of army P38 Fighters as well as F4F Wildcats of the US Marines and US Navy here an allout battle ensued in the air in the intense dog fight tracers flew across the sky and aircraft from both sides were hit one of the first however to go down was petty officer yasushi okazaki with an American fighter behind his aircraft took a hit and his zero went down in flames the first of the Yamamoto escorts to die his glorious death but he would

not be the only one lost on the day also struck in this engagement would be chief petty officer and Ace yashim hadaka his zero2 would go down and he would be killed in action making the second loss of the zero pilots from the famous April Mission but also in this engagement another incident would happen with yet another of the Yamamoto escort pilots from the 204th Air Group and this one perhaps even more gruesome than a quick and fiery death recently promoted petty officer Kenji yanaga the zero pilot who was on the far right of yamamoto's

Infamous flight had just finished his Glide bombing run on the airfield on the Russell Islands a few moments later two F4F Wildcats pulled behind his zero and open fire the despite his attempts to evade their rounds found their target and his fighter was hit directly in the cockpit as he tried to escape a entered his cockpit from behind and went directly through his right hand as it held onto the control stick this bullet took off most of his right hand leaving only his small finger remaining his plane then spiraled out of control with the F4F

Wildcats leaving him for dead but miraculously yania regained control of his zero using his left hand to take over the controls at this moment as he leveled off he also realized though that his leg was seriously hit as well bleeding profusely with no other options he turned for the nearest Japanese Airfield Munda and tried to survive the flight for the next few minutes with one hand shot off and his right boot filling with blood he began to feel lightheaded recognizing the serious risk of passing out from blood loss Kenji yanaga started yelling at himself in

the cockpit trying desperately to keep himself awake and somehow it worked as he approached Munda Airfield with no right hand he was unable to lower the landing gear and flaps as both of those controls were on the right side of of the cockpit and he had no way to reach them without letting go of the stick so he came in and crashed landed wheels up and with no flaps screeching to a stop at Munda Airfield fortunately Japanese Marines pulled him from the cockpit and immediately began to care for him amputating his right hand and doing

everything possible to stop the bleeding against the odds he survived and just a few weeks later was sent back to Japan to recover another Yamamoto escort gone from the front meanwhile though the fighting at the front lines continued and the three remaining pilots from the Yamamoto Mission were still hungry for blood on June 16th they would get another chance to get it on this mission A large group of Allied transport ships was spotted off the coast of guad canal the 204th Air Group yet again attacked in full force here they were intercepted by a large

American fighter force and today the Japanese would pay a high toll for the raid more than 20 aircraft were shot down in this assault as American p38s dealt a heavy blow to their force during this dog fight one more escort pilot from the Yamamoto raid would be lost and this would be flight leader to hasi morisaki during the battle he was shot down and killed achieving what he no doubt was aiming for a glorious death and Redemption this now brought the total number of fighting pilots from the Yamamoto mission to just two 2 weeks later

a similar strike was again ordered that involved the 204th Air Group this would see another attack against Allied Shipping at guad Canal and here another loss was incurred chief petty officer toyomitsu suino went missing at some point during the engagement and was never seen again based on the information from the battle it is assumed that he too was shot down and killed in Just 4 months following the April 18th loss of Yamamoto four of the six zero Pilots were lost only two more remained alive and and only one at the front lines this would be

flyer first class shoichi sugita and he too like his fellow Pilots took the loss of Yamamoto personally and swore to himself to avenge it but he apparently had a different way of approaching this Vengeance instead of a glorious death shoichi sugita wanted to survive in any way possible because he saw Redemption differently he clearly believed that shooting down as many American aircraft as possible was the best way to exact Vengeance and over the coming weeks and months after April of 1943 he would do exactly that soita quickly began to rack up kills in the South

Pacific in the missions where the other escorting zero Pilots were lost he paid the Americans back he shot down American fighters time and time again wild cats p38s and any other adversary that he ran into by the late summer he was not only the leading Ace of the 204th Air Group but the overall leader of the Solomon Islands campaign for the Imperial Japanese Navy now it is also important to remember that the documentation of these kill claims is hard to come by due to ja Japanese recordkeeping but according to my best estimates around this time

sigita likely had around 40 kills in the South Pacific in August however he too would meet a worthy adversary in an attempted intercept against American bombers sigita was caught in the sights of an enemy fighter and was hit in the engine his zero then caught fire and began going down and then in what was mostly an unpopular move for Japanese Pilots sigita bailed out parachuting down into friendly territory when he landed he was still alive but had received severe burns so after being treated he was then like Kenji yanaga sent back to Japan to recover

from his injuries this now left two surviving zero pilots from the Yamamoto Mission both in recovery from combat injuries but their story was not over in March of 1944 7 months later shichi sigita had recovered enough to fly again and being one of the highest scoring aces in the war for Japan his skills were very much needed so he was then sent back to Guam where he began to fight again in the next few weeks he raised his score even more Downing American bombers and Fighters at a staggering Pace but things were not going quite

so well for the rest of the Japanese Navy at one point here during the summer his unit the 263rd air group was essentially completely exhausted as they had taken High losses during the Mariana's turkey shoot in June so the remaining six aircraft of his unit were ordered to fly to a base farther back from the front lines to be transferred during this flight however they were ambushed by American hellcats and the Navy Fighters hit all of the zeros in the flight soita however was the sole survivor his plane was hit badly and his navigation equipment

was shot out but miraculously navigating by mostly intuition he made it to his destination as one of the only living members of the 263rd Air Group still not giving up his fight he was transferred to a new group and continued to wreak havoc on American forces until October of 1944 at this point his new unit the 20ir air group was reorganized as the first official kamakazi special attack team of the Imperial Navy now this unit was not specifically comic Kazi Pilots themselves but instead were assigned to fly escort for the suicide bombers themselves their job

was to protect them and confirm the results of their attacks eventually though after serving here he was moved to one more final unit based near okanawa in early 1945 now with around 70 kills to his name he was one of the most prized Assets in the Imperial Japanese Navy on April 15th of 1945 however his career finally came to an end during a scramble to intercept American aircraft sita's plane was just getting off the ground from the island of kushu when f6f hellcats of the US Navy arrived vulnerable and an easy target Sig's fighter was

hit as it tried to get airborne crashing just beyond the runway and killing the last Frontline member of the famous Yamamoto flight and one of Japan's most storied Aces this left only one other living pilot from the Yamamoto Mission Kenji yania yania after losing his right hand eventually recovered to the point where he was assigned to train pilots in Japan and was promoted to Warrant Officer he served this position well but never saw combat again finishing the war with eight victories and residing in Tokyo after the war for many years he did not speak of

his role in the Yamamoto Mission as he carried responsibility for what had happened that is until the 1970s when he was discovered and interviewed by a Japanese author after this he was invited to a meeting at the Admiral nimit museum in Texas in 1988 with all of the other surviving P38 pilots from operation Vengeance we are also honored of course to have with us today the surviving zero pilot uh Kenji yanaha [Applause] he shook hands with Rex Barber and the other American Pilots where historians and Veterans alike celebrated one of the most famous events in

World War II warrant officer Kenji yania finally passed away in 2008 at the age of 88 the final zero pilot from the Yamamoto raid to go hopefully here he was fully redeemed from his role in the faithful mission in April of 1943 please consider supporting me on patreon so I can make more videos like this one thanks for watching and I'll see you next time