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

AIR SUPERIORITY
drawal of aircraft from all other sectors ... in order to participate in the
action.”’29 Japanese Air General Army staff officers asserted subsequently
that the Army intended to commit “the full air force led by the commanding
general. We expected annihilation of our entire air force but
we felt that it was our duty.”130 Once the last designated kamikazes were
expended, the remaining first-line conventional fighter pilots, who until
then had been used to escort and shepherd the Special Attack planes,
would be assigned suicide missions themselves. It is probable that at
least two-thirds of the Japanese air forces’ planes and pilots would have
been consumed as
It should be noted, however, that the
Japanese did not hope to win the war at this late date; they intended to
inflict such fearful casualties on the foe that better than unconditional
terms could be secured.
By August 1945, Japanese air units were amassing “every type of plane
[they] could find, no matter how obsolete or how long in storage.” The final
air potential of both services in Japan and in areas of practicable reinforcement
(Korea, Manchuria, north and central China, and Taiwan) was much
higher than Allied intelligence’s tally. The IJAAF alone possessed a maximum
number of 7,800 aircraft: 2,650 ready for the kamikaze role (900 combat
types, 1,750 advanced trainers), 2,150 suitable for conventional use,
and 3,000 available but not currently effective-that is, undergoing repair
or modification, still assigned to training units or in storage, etc. The last
inventory of IJNAF (which was regarded as ahead of the Army in preparations,
dispersal, and level of maintenance) included a maximum number of
10,100 planes; 2,700 primary trainers ready for kamikaze use, 3,200 orthodox
aircraft, and 4,200 available but not fully effective. The two services
thus had a combined total of 10,700 operational planes, of which 5,350 had
been prepared as kamikazes and an equal number as conventional combat
aircraft. If the 7,200 additional IJAAF and IJNAF planes available but not
deemed currently effective were counted, the maximum number of aircraft
carried in the inventories of both services’ air forces would reach a grand
total of 17,900.132
It goes without saying that the statistics for effective air potential were
seriously vitiated by Japan’s fundamental weaknesses, rendered irreversible
by war’s end. For example, with the isolation of the Japanese
homeland from the Asian continent and Southeast Asia, the importation
of fuel as well as natural resources dwindled seriously. Substitute
aviation fuels, some bordering on desperation, were introduced (alcohol)
or tested (pineroot oil, isopropyl ether, camphor oil). Since mid-1944,
the Japanese had had to reduce military aviation fuel consumption at the
very time that air combat was becoming crucial; the effects were felt
greatly in the area of training. Even the program of orthodox air training
in the Navy had to be cut to fifteen hours per pilot per month by the end of
the war. 133
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