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

AIR SUPERIORITY
the 10th Air Division believed that their interceptors brought down a total
of 15 B-29~ no bombers were actually lost to fighters. Several returning
Japanese pilots were killed in crashes while trying to find their air bases
that night.
In theory, the Japanese interceptors should have done better against
the low-level bombers. Instead, according to Japanese air veterans, the
decrease in altitude of engagement did little to improve the fighters’ record.
Flying at a night-time height of less than 10,000 feet, the B-29s could
increase their operational radius, strike in larger numbers, and select targets
more easily. This, in turn, forced the Japanese pilots into piecemeal
and even more dispersed action. Hampered by insufficient early warning,
at night the fighters were obliged to link up with the narrow-beam searchlight
units, a fact which constricted the pilots’ ability to locate and engage
the
The B-29s reported that Japanese flak was moderate in general and
varied in accuracy and severity. Automatic-cannon batteries tended to fire
too low, while heavy AA guns fired too high. The intensity of fire diminished
greatly as the raid progressed. In all, flak hit forty-two B-29s, bringing
down fourteen, five of whose crews were saved at sea. The loss ratio in
terms of sorties was computed as 4.2 percent, which the Americans
regarded as a moderate price in terms of the catastrophe visited on Tokyo
by the bombers.64 Though it lost its administration building and quarters,
the 10th Air Division still retained its operational headquarters; but the
staff realized that another such raid would raze the capital, paralyze the
core of the government and the military, and unhinge the people’s resolve
to go on with the war.hs
The Japanese Forfeit Air Superiority Contest
over the Homeland
The ineffectiveness of the Japanese air defense system in coping with
the disastrous B-29 offensive caused very real concern at the highest levels
of government. There was fear, in particular, that portions of the country
might be isolated from the remainder as the result of air bombardment of
the vulnerable transportation network. Nevertheless, in spite of the trauma
caused by the raid of March 9, the Japanese High Command adopted only
minimal air defense countermeasures. For example, from the other air divisions
in Japan a mere twenty fighters were transferred to the defense of
Tokyo, and even those planes were released in about two weeks when no
second B-29 offensive had materialized by then.66
It is apparent that defense of the endangered Pacific approaches to
Japan took precedence, even at this late stage of the war in the spring of
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