Japanese Navy Expected 100 PT Boats — Then 531 Mosquito Craft Hunted Every Transport to Death

Japanese Navy Expected 100 PT Boats — Then 531 Mosquito Craft Hunted Every Transport to Death

On the morning of February fourteenth, nineteen forty-three, Flight Petty Officer Saburo Sakai pressed his Zero fighter into a climbing turn above Guadalcanal, chasing what he thought was an easy kill. The American fighter ahead of him was big, bulky, with an inverted gull wing that looked awkward and slow. It was an F4U Corsair, and Sakai had never seen one before. He'd been flying Zeros since nineteen forty-one, had shot down more than fifty Allied aircraft over China, the Philippines, and the South Pacific. He knew how to kill American fighters. You got above them, used the Zero's superior climb rate and maneuverability, forced them into a turning fight, and watched them die.
The Corsair pilot seemed to understand he was in trouble. The American leveled his wings, pointed the nose down, and dove. Sakai smiled. American pilots always ran when they couldn't win the dogfight. He'd seen it a hundred times. P-40 Warhawks diving for the deck, F4F Wildcats trying to escape using their superior dive speed. The tactic worked sometimes, but only if they had enough altitude to build separation. This Corsair was at eight thousand feet when it started its dive. Not enough. Sakai would follow him down, catch him before he reached the cloud layer, finish him with a quick burst.
Sakai rolled inverted and pulled through into a vertical dive. His Zero accelerated rapidly. Two hundred knots, two hundred fifty, three hundred. The airframe started to shake. The fabric-covered ailerons went rigid. This was normal. The Zero wasn't built for high-speed diving. It was built for dogfighting at low speeds where it could turn inside anything the Americans flew. But Sakai could hold the dive long enough to close the distance, get within gun range, take the shot.