Case Studies in the Achievement of Air Superiority - Air Force ...

AIR SUPERIORITY
ordered to disperse and seek shelter. Division Commander Maj. Gen.
Kihachiro Yoshida argued that to conserve air strength contradicted the
purpose of air defense. Pursuing a deliberate policy of “gradual decline”
would only lead to impotence when maximum defensive strength was really
needed. The core of fighter pilots’ elan was the offensive; morale would be
eroded, once the interceptors lost their raison d’btre. Though impressed by
Yoshida’s impassioned plea, the Air Defense Command declined to lift the
restriction on all-out engagement of enemy fighters, “lest strength be consumed
premat~rely.”~~
With their numbers reduced by losses on February 16, and by the withholding
of fighter units, the Japanese put up fewer interceptors to meet the
4 waves of U.S. Navy carrier planes (estimated at 180, 90, 250, 70, respectively),
which struck at airfields, factories, and maritime facilities on
Honshu the next day. Nevertheless, the IJAAF claimed good results, not
far off the actual mark, for February 17: 36 enemy planes shot down and 18
damaged, at a cost of 14. Antiaircraft batteries fired at the same rate as on
the 16th, though 120-mm gun crews were more active. In the day and a half
of air defense on February 16-17, the Japanese made the wildly exaggerated
claim of having shot down 273 enemy aircraft (including 98 by IJNAF)
and having damaged more than 84 (including 3 by IJNAF). As previously
noted, total U.S. Navy plane losses did not actually surpass 84. But Japanese
losses on the ground were far fewer than the Americans reported,
because, the Japanese contend, of their good dispersion and concealment.
For example, IJAAF plane losses on the ground really amounted only to 2
on February 16. Nonetheless, the Japanese admitted that many fine pilots
were lost in the interceptors that crashed-more than 50 pilots in Army
units alone.4h
On February 25, in concert with a 200-bomber B-29 strike, Task Force
58 returned to the attack, since the results of the strikes on February 16-17
had obviously not been decisive and since the fast carriers were not needed
at Iwo Jima. Terrible weather, however, rendered the results in the Tokyo
area even less successful than during the earlier strike, and Mitscher called
off further operations by mid-day ; mainly secondary targets had had to be
attacked. Said Admiral Sherman: “The enemy opposition was only
halfhearted and Japanese planes which were not shot down seemed glad to
withdraw from the scene. . . as swiftly and unceremoniously as possible.
Even here, over their own capital, the enemy were notably inferior to our
naval aviators in aggressiveness, tactics, and determination.” Antiaircraft
opposition was severe over the urban area, but “it was remarkable,” added
Sherman, that Japanese planes did not attack the U.S. task force at sea4’
The Japanese sighted about 600 U.S. Navy planes in total on the 25th.
Worsening weather and heavy seas forced Mitscher to cancel a planned
strike against Nagoya the next day. The Americans made an unrealistic
claim to have destroyed at least 158 Japanese aircraft, but the IJA gunners’
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