Corsair vs Zero, The Real kill ratio …

[Mark Allen M]

Interesting read.

"The myth of the alleged outstanding Corsair score ratio has gained historical traction because Western historians continue to accept US combat claims at face value instead of consulting the meticulous Japanese unit records which are illuminating and detailed."

Author Michael Claringbould explores the false mystique surrounding the history of the Corsair for his recent title 'F4U Corsair versus A6M Zero-sen'.

You can find the post here: https://bit.ly/34QqZJZ

[Mark Allen M]

And NO! I’m not pimping the book. Just an observation piece I find interesting. Thought I’d share it.

[old iron]

I remember when Danial Ford's "Flying Tigers", which greatly reduced the exagerrated American claims in China, came out there was much beating of breasts about how this could not be true. I have gathered from my reading, and do not claim any particular expertise here, that Americans were particularly prone to optimistic claims, in both WWI and WW2. Perhaps it is our nature to be more biased by prospects of fame and media influences, not to mention the desk-bound unit-level offices wanting bragging rights over their equivalents from other units; we are by nature quite competitive in these ways.

The Germans, on the other hand, were surprisingly objective - An examination of Richtofen's 80 claims shows almost all of them to be valid, matched with lost Allied airplanes.

[p51]

I have gathered from my reading, and do not claim any particular expertise here, that Americans were particularly prone to optimistic claims, in both WWI and WW2.

Some suggested the same for RAF claims during the Battle of Britain. Even suggestions since then to the contrary did not go over well well. I remember the book (and later TV mini-series) "Piece of cake" gained equal condemnation from many Brits for the fictional suggestion that those claims were inflated.
I would go so far as to wonder if maybe the incredibly high-number German ace scores could have been equally inflated for propaganda purposes. Let's face it, we all know that the Germans in WW2 sure overestimated (and outright lied about) all kinds of other things during the war, so why should historians accept those high number of kills as gospel without wondering if they're accurate?

[k5083]

The lopsided kill ratio attributed to the F6F Hellcat is similarly dubious.

August

[Noha307]

More falsehoods soon became apparent too; the history of the Corsair is lopsided by false mystique, none more so than the claim it was nicknamed “Whistling Death” by harried Japanese. The relentless reiteration of this claim has somehow acquired the status of fact. However, the Japanese equivalent exists nowhere in Japanese literature, war-time records or even POW interrogations. The moniker was in fact concocted by Vought’s publicity department, and has been misattributed ever since.

I have been skeptical of the "Whistling Death" moniker for a long time, it's good to see someone finally address it. While I don't doubt that it was a fabrication of Vought's publicity department, I would like to see his evidence. I imagine it is similar to a magazine advertisement where North American tried to claim the Japanese called the B-25 "The Flying Pillbox" and a promotional film (see 10:30) that stated the A-36 was "sometimes called the 'Screaming Demon'". (Move over "Apache/Invader"!) It is also worth noting that Beaufighters were supposedly known by the near identical term "Whispering Death", so it may have just been a common phrase being passed around at the time.

There are similar suspicions that the "fork-tailed devil" nickname for the P-38 was only popularized by Martin Caidin's book of the same name. (And we all know his record for accuracy isn't that great.) The name appears in an advertisement on the back cover of the May 1945 issue of Flying, although there is a suggestion that it was coined by journalists in Africa. A quick search of Newspapers.com reveals it first appears in articles on 26 August 1943 (1, 2) and just over a month later was mentioned in an article titled "Fork-Tailed Yankee Hawk" with a byline of Burbank, California. (As an aside, I have always wondered whether it may have inspired the "v-tailed doctor-killer" name for the Bonanza, as they both share a similar cadence and reference to a distinctive design feature of the aircraft.)

[JohnB]

A couple of points worth considering...

Remember, there were different types of claims made:

-Spur of the moment, post-combat unofficial claims made by crews...
usually in error because several people shot at the same target..an honest mistake.
-Claims that a target, air, ground or ship, was destroyed when it wasn't.
It was damaged but repaired. this often happened with warships...on both sides. Again, an honest error.

Now remember, jubilant crews met with war correspondents who disseminated those claims. Those comments, while passed by military censors, were not "official" statements or claims.

Don't believe for a moment that Hap Arnold, Chester Nimitz or their Intel staffs put much stock into those claims.

I think the U.S. military did a fairly honest job, albeit post war, in sorting out the official tally once they had access to enemy records.

Look at the Strategic Bombing Survey...a hard look at the effects of American efforts (and often used by British partisan authors to show how bad the 8th AF presumably was ).

We have all read where an ace's (or groups) total was subsequently revised.
I recall an official effort in the '80s to revise the F-86 vs MiG records.
as new information became available. IIRC, the USAF out out a news release.

So, condider the various sources.
The official numbers have been revised, so don't confuse thoughtful and researched tallys with wartime propaganda, self serving memoirs, or
Cadin-esque "Rah-rah" potboilers.

Last edited by JohnB on Mon Mar 21, 2022 4:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Stephan Wilkinson]

I have been skeptical of the "Whistling Death" moniker for a long time

The best reason to be skeptical of this and other fearsome nicknames given to various warbirds is that in reality, enemies NEVER give praiseworthy tags to their opponents' airplanes. They make fun of them, call them Pickleforks or Flying Pencils, not Fork-Tailed Devil or Whistling Death.

I assume that NATO tags for Soviet aircraft are computer-generated, but there is a reason they're called Fishbed, Fagot, Flounder and Frogfoot. And the reason is that if the computer spat out Furious, Fightking or Flamethrower, it would quickly be manually rejected.

I'm sure fighter pilots of all nations are just as arrogant and prideful as American jet jocks are, and I just don't see a German Bf-109 ace slinking around referring to his opponent as a Fork-Tailed Devil. Not gonna happen. That's job of desk jockies back in the PR department.

[Spitty]

Yep its just PR spin..Same as early war the Japanese were flying planes built of bamboo and their pilots had bad eyesight..

[shrike]

I assume that NATO tags for Soviet aircraft are computer-generated, but there is a reason they're called Fishbed, Fagot, Flounder and Frogfoot. And the reason is that if the computer spat out Furious, Fightking or Flamethrower, it would quickly be manually reject.

The requirement is first letter(role), number of syllables (one if by prop, two if by jet) and distinctive. Quite a few have come out that are complimentary.
Fang, Fencer, Firebird, Flanker, Felon (kinda cool in a badboy way), Foxhound,and of course Fulcrum, which was so well received that MiG trademarked it for export


Bounder (another badboy), Blinder, Badger, Bear, Blackjack

Hind (where are Hawkers lawyers?) Helix, Havok and Hoodlum

Madcap, Maestro, Mainstay, Mandrake, Mantis

OK, the cargo planes all kinda suck tho.

[shrike]

Duplicate post
(although we could do missiles if you like)

[Noha307]

The best reason to be skeptical of this and other fearsome nicknames given to various warbirds is that in reality, enemies NEVER give praiseworthy tags to their opponents' airplanes. They make fun of them, call them Pickleforks or Flying Pencils, not Fork-Tailed Devil or Whistling Death.

Enemies? Heck, even an aircraft's own pilots give them derogatory nicknames! "All Three Dead" for the A3D, "Old, Slow and Ugly" for the OS2U, etc.

I assume that NATO tags for Soviet aircraft are computer-generated, but there is a reason they're called Fishbed, Fagot, Flounder and Frogfoot. And the reason is that if the computer spat out Furious, Fightking or Flamethrower, it would quickly be manually rejected.

Luckily enough, the guy who assigned the names for the MiG-23, MiG-23-01, MiG-25, Su-15, and Yak-36 happened to write a short article detailing his rationale for each name.

[Chris Brame]

So... is there any evidence of what the enemy did call our planes, based on postwar interviews? Only one I remember was "Bi-ni-ku-ju" for the B-29, which is just a translation?

[JohnB]

Yep its just PR spin..Same as early war the Japanese were flying planes built of bamboo and their pilots had bad eyesight..

I think that is a bit oversimplified.
That idea did not survive (at least among the pi!ots) for long after the first AVG pilots entered combat.
I'm not sure any military personnel EVER believed that.
I don't think they were that stupid.

Clearly the Japanese were a force to be reckoned with...after all in addition to the Pearl Harbor successes, they captured the western Pacific, most of Southeast Asia, captured "imoregnablt" called fortresses at Singapore and the Phullipines, as well as destroying two of the Royal Navy's greatest ships...with airplanes that weren't supposed to be there.
All of this was known by allied forces and their commanders.

Now, Hollywood and the media may have fostered that idea, among the general public after all, Pearl Harbor, have the nation a rude shock and they were feeling vulnerable.
They needed some lies to help them sleep better and to think their sons, brothers and husbands could win the war and come home.

By the time the war was being contested in ernest, Some gave the "Zero" almost mythological qualities.*

It took a few months for American pilots to learn the enemy's vulnerabilities and for Americans to counter the enemy with appropriate tactics like the "Thatch weave" and exploit their aircraft's strong points.

*Likewise, following early successes, Japanese ground forces were credited with being stealthy, super ninja warriors, until their weaknesses were learned at Guadalcanal. Simply put, we learned they were not supermen.

[gemmer]

There is no question that American pilots over claimed aircraft destroyed by error or by design. In some cases, credit was given for claims that were totally unverified for propaganda value. A prime example being the 8 kills by Boyd "Buzz'' Wagner in the Philippines and New Guinea. To my knowledge, none of them were confirmed. But, as in the case of Colin Kelly, the country needed a hero. Having said that, there's also no doubt that dubious claims were just as common in other air arms, too.

I do have some issues with Mr. Claringboulds article. His comment about the R-2800's reliability stands in contrast to the successes of the many single and twin engine aircraft that used it. And he claims that aircraft lost by "mechanical misfortune" due to advanced technology was partially accounted for the F4U's "one to one" record against the A6M. I not sure why operational losses the were not due to combat would be factored into a
kill:loss ratio. The issue of the the F4U vs A6M in a low and slow dogfight is nothing new and applies to any other American fighter vs the A6M. The rule was always don't get in a dogfight with the A6M, in particular a low and slow one. But, to say that at low altitude, the F4U was dead meat because it couldn't dive away is a bit of an exaggeration.

Last edited by gemmer on Wed Mar 23, 2022 12:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.