Thursday 14 May 2020

Mitsubishi A6M 'Zero', part one, foreign users

The Mitsubishi A6M 'Zero' is a Japanese long-range fighter which was manufactured by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, in Nagoya, Japan. It's considered to have been one of the most capable carrier fighters in the world when it was introduced back in World War II as it had excellent speed ,manoeuvrability and very long range. It was used by many foreign n/ations, albeit every foreign user employed captured exemplars.

  • Australia: At the end of the war, a single Zero was given by the TAIU-SWPA (Technical Air Intelligence Unit - South-Western Pacific)  to the No.457 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) at Clark Field, in Philippines. It was tested by the RAAF.
  • Nationalist China: The Republic of China Air Force (ROCAF) operated some captured Zeroes of every variant, A6M2, A6M3 and A6M5 mainly. Most of them were captured after the when war, when the Japanese left China, as most of them belonged to the Japanese 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th and Shanghai Kokutais (Air Groups) which operated from mainland China. They were also part of the Imperial Japanese Air Service's (IJNAS) detachment stationed in Formosa, which were Hao Toko, Takao, Tetshu, Kagi, Toki and Tainan Kokutai. During the last stages of the Chinese Civil War, from 1945 to 1949, the Zeroes were employed by both sides, Communists and Nationalists, but neither of them survived the war or those which did, were scrapped shortly later.
  • United Kingdom: Some Zeroes were tested by the ATAIU-SEA (Allied Technical Air Intelligence Unite - South East Asia) after the war. One of them, re-registered as Bi-12 was captured in Malaya and was tested at Tebrau airfield, in Malaya in 1946. However, it seems that most of them  were tested at RAF Seletar, in Singapore.
  • Soviet Union: When the USSR took the Sakhalin islands, apparently they captured some Zeroes, of the A6M7 Model 63 variant, which was the last variant to see service. This variant was more focused on ground attack/dive bombing. When it was flown by the Soviet VVS (Soviet Air Force) after the war, it crashed in the second test flight.
  • United States of America: During the duration of the conflict the United States captured many exemplars of Zeroes. Those captured during the war, some of them were repainted in US Navy colours and sent to mainland USA to be tested. The ones captured after or during the last stages of the war, were tested by the United States Army Air Force (USAAF), many of them at Clark Field, Philippines. 
Lastly, it seems that there were some reports of A6M2 and A6M5 Zeroes were used as interceptors after the war in 1946-1947 by both the Royal Thai Air Force and the Royal Thai Navy, however, the error seems to be erroneous, as more modern reports indicate that the Zero was never used by Thailand.
Also, it seems that pro-independence Indonesian Guerrillas captured some Zeroes and employed them against Dutch troops in the Indonesian War of Independence from 1945 to 1949. However, even if the reports seems plausible as the Indonesian employed many ex-Japanese aircraft in their National Revolution, we couldn't find any pic of an Indonesian Zero, so we decided not to draw a speculative profile.









Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_A6M_Zero
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mitsubishi_A6M_Zero_operators
3. https://captured-wings.wikia.org/wiki/ATAIU-SEA
4. https://web.archive.org/web/20161104191035/http://www.thai-aviation.net/files/Air_Force_Summary.pdf
5. http://www.worldairforces.com/countries/thailand/thl.html
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_Air_Intelligence_Unit
7. Signal Squadron - Aircraft In action 59 - Mitsubishi A6M Zero in Action

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