Warbird Information Exchange

I was wondering if anybody knew if any of the Japanese planes attacking Pearl Harbor collided with each other?

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Aloha Scott,
There are two incidents regarding "aerial collisions" on 7 Dec 1941.

Incident one: Three torpedo planes headed for USS Oklahoma in a trail formation was to the left of another three torpedo planes headed for USS West Virginia [on the right]...the last of the planes -in the West Virginia line up changed target to the Oklahoma- and veered into the path of the final torpedo plane headed for USS Oklahoma...this near miss was averted. There was no collision. READ more about this and the entire action of "Torpedoing Pearl Harbor" in Military History magazine, Dec 2001 issue...it is the cover story.

Incident two: a USS Enterprise SBD flew 'into war' over Barber's Point while Ewa Mooring Mast Field was being strafed. It was later found crashed by US artillery men setting up just east of the base. A document was generated. In THE BIG E book, the story is told...about the Zero which crashed into the SBD. However, look at the document carefully, there were TWO Japanese crewmen on the plane...a VAL dive bomber.

A quick check of the records also confirm that only ONE D3A dive bomber crashed from the FIRST wave [when the SBD crashed]...and it had run out of fuel northwest of the Hawaiian Islands while begging the Kido Butai for directions. Thus the supposed mid-air collision did not happen between the first wave SBD and the second wave Japanese D3A, but had only crashed near each other about 45 minutes apart.

There were NO other mid-air happenings between Japanese or between US and Japanese...no matter what Ben had done in that movie!
Kampai,
D. Ai-ken, dai toa senso kokan senshi: Shinjuwan Sakusen sensei

I was just curious. With the numbers of planes in the air manuevering violently it's bound to happen at some point. I've often wondered about this in regards to the Battle Of Britain. I know there have been cases of U.S. Bombers hitting each other.

I know when I play flight sims I tend to die far more often by hitting the Heinkels with my Hurricane than by 109s or return fire. When I played European Air War, out of 30 missions I only landed at the base after the mission 12 times and only once with my prop turning

_________________
Scott Rose
Editor-In-Chief/Webmaster
Warbirds Resource Group - Warbird Information Exchange - Warbird Registry

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Aloha Scott,
When I was writing the "Torpedoing Pearl Harbor" article, I interviewed nine Japanese aerial veterans of that portion of the attack. They had an order to the torpedo attack to prevent collisions...yet their fear was that the 500 meter separation -nose to tail of preceding plane- was not enough to prevent the water spout from the preceding torpedo explosion from hitting their plane...so the pilots separated the distance to as much as 1500 meters.

The late Hirata Matsumura, second in command of the torpedo attack, could not find a target on the north side of Ford Island [CV Row] so he hunted for better opportunity on the south side [BB Row]. He noted that when he entered the flight path of some preceding [Akagi] torpedo bombers the slipstream jarred his own plane so bad that he had to make yet another approach. Matsumura sent me several letters before we met in 1991. His additions and corrections greatly helped my text.
Cheers,
David