To many Americans, the phrase “made in Japan” was synonymous with low quality and rudimentary technology. But this perception changed after the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, in which they were violently introduced to a groundbreaking piece of Japanese engineering: the formidable Mitsubishi A6M Zero.
For the following months, the US military scrambled to keep up with the nimble fighter, and it quickly earned a mythical reputation. The warplane seemed to be everywhere in the Pacific, had an unprecedented range, and could easily outmaneuver anything the Allies threw at it.
More concerning was the fact that it was a seaborne aircraft designed to be launched by Japanese carriers. These ships were supposed to be inferior to land-based fighters due to their space restrictions; still, the Zero was outclassing every single land warplane.
The US went to great lengths to capture one of these machines and learn how they were made and what made them so powerful. However, the Japanese were highly protective of their technology, and they would crash their own aircraft before risking being captured.
On July 12, 1942, the tide abruptly changed when a US Navy patrol crew landed on the island of Akutan following a strange series of events that led to an aircraft being flipped upside-down. Still, the plane was intact and immediately rushed to Naval Air Station in San Diego, California.
The secrets of the A6M Zero were about to be uncovered…
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"The worlds first guided bomb used people, it was inevitable. In Muslim counties suicide bombers still do plenty of damage."
I wish stats were given in mph
Why were some of the planes shown were Oscar's?
My grandfather was stationed on the Bunker Hill, but was back stateside for dive bomber training when it was attacked. Luckily the war ended before he was ready to return to the pacific
Never hear about Japanese immigrants being disloyal. Around the world it was more the rule than the exception. It's great to virtue signal when there is no war and no fear.
Wow. The Zero set the stage of what was to come in WW2. New designs from WW1 planes to WW2 jets developed so quickly. Then the moon. 😎 Thank you.
The Surpise attack we knew about days before.
Ronald Reagan fighter pilot? Who knew?
The Zero was NOT a copy of any other plane. That myth was debunked long ago. This was a fairy tale that the USA and UK told themselves because they didn't believe that the Japanese could possibly have developed such a good fighter themselves. It's ironic that every major power in WW2 believed that their own people were superior to all others – and it was shown to be untrue in all cases.
no mames 🤣🤣🤣
And fully listening to this, you understand a key part of the reason for Japanese internment. And some further history, that during World War I many German Americans either left America to fight for Germany while a few stayed behind or returned and committed acts of sabotage (see the Black Tom explosion), and you see they had a very legitimate reason to believe Japanese Americans might do the same. And then, the very first time their loyalty was tested, they failed miserably. What choice was there? And if you also look at things objectively, you will also realize that it actually saved them; no one would employ them, their businesses would be boycotted or burned, they would lose their homes, and they would starve. Was it horrible? Yes. Was it inconceivable and deplorable by current the state of modern society? Yes. But at the time it was actually unavoidable.
The Mitsubishi was still low quality piece of s*** aircraft volume don't give a good quality just like their Automotive today they're pieces of s*** love quality high-volume automotive industry hella words build a lot for cheap and sell them for cheap just like then their aircraft was still a poor quality aircraft it just was a lot of them built
Outstand video with only a few small technical errors….
Summary: Americans condescendingly believed anything made in Japan was a piece of crap. The Zero, however, was devastatingly effective, until Americans discovered it was a piece of crap.
I like seeing a young Ronald Reagan as a fighter pilot.
It was a zero up in the Alaska area…. right?
I swear if I keep seeing ads for chinese games every 4 minutes watching this guys vid…….
These videos are terrific! Photos, research, etc. My only suggestion is to lower the volume of the drum-filled background music. Maybe it's just my speakers, but watching the documentary is anxiety-producing, and it's not from the material or reporting. 🙂 Just the backing music. . . respectfully submitted., a history lover and ex photojournalist in South Dakota.
My dad was navy from39 to 44 he was liberty ships supplys at ocanwa comcazzy he the gunner hit plane it locked on the ship was less guns was the pilot choice dad hunted he got the plane and then front of ship was gone he was blow in too water crew pick him up after ship gone down nocked out face up fleet did stop they there 12 days got to go home missed my mom he met in39 welsh gal he relisted army was in Germany in45 got out in46 got hiched he said was not going to let no other yank take her home we lived in kansas west of kansas city
It wasn’t so much the zero’s superiority as it was _the depression & tightfisted taxpayers forced the war department in the United States after World War to not spend money.
Therefore our aircraft were mostly old and outdated.
The attack on Pearl Harbour that they knew was coming and used it to sway the US public to back them going into WWII…
"The Mitsubishi A6m Zero was an incredible machine, extremely fast and nimble with a incredible climb rate" so here's a picture of a Oscar….cos that's the quality of the channel. Something akin to the History Channel….
That's NOT a compliment.
Claims of weights in this video are way off from reality. A6M did not weight 1260kg less than F4F, in reality the empty weight was about 1200 pounds (~550kg) less and maximum takeoff weight about 1300 pounds (600kg) less.
I think the Intro to this video is BS — the narrator stated that before WW2, Japanese products in the USA were considered inferior.
There were almost NO Japanese products imported widely in the US before WW2. Japanese products were not in American then. The Japanese got a reputation AFTER WW2 for producing low-quality junk that saturated US markets. But that was only after the big war, when America was letting ALL war-torn countries send their junk to American markets, so they could make a little money and resurrect their devastated economies.
Kilograms is cool, but can we have pounds too?
Wait… Reagan was in Air Command???
It would have been a slug if it had all the protection the American fighters had.
That American pilot they keep showing look amazingly like Ronald Reagan back in his acting days…
This is the first time that I have heard of the Niihau Island incident. This explains the Interment of ethnic Japanese during the war. Thank you.
For anyone interested in visiting, The place to see the restored Zero in Tokyo is the Yasukuni Shrine. I visited both the shrine and the museum. The museum has a great many interesting artifacts, including a steam locomotive used in occupied Burma. The museum has a nice bookstore as well. Lots of history books to enjoy (if you can read Kanji). I can't read much – but I got lucky. I was in Japan to visit my future in-laws, and my fiancée was at the dentist. I picked up a book that looked interesting and gave it to my fiancée. It turned out to be a history of all the Japanese emperors. My now wife is a huge history buff, and sometimes is asked to give historical presentations at one of the local Japanese schools.
'Statistically insignificant' you must be joking.
The RAF had cured the carburettor problems which also beset the Zero, by March 1941, apart from when there was long inverted flight, not a common requirement. That was also fully cured in 1943.
Hey President Reagan appears at 1:45
Zeros have Zero HP no wonder 😉
That nimble fighter quickly lost its advantage when America realised it was at war .
Range.
In the beginning the WWII, Zero had more than twice the range of closest American fighters.
Zero would appear where far away from the Aircraft careers(American knew where they were) that American thought there were extra careers in the ocean.
At the end of the war, it was still the top range fighters but they no longer needed the fighters flying from the careers.
Americans had P-51 to escort the B-29 bombers.
The most important one was the Betty in which Yamamoto was riding
There was a belly landed A6M in pre-Pearl Harbor China which was recovered and made flyable. Some of the AVG pilots flew it. The Alaska Zero was the second recovered airframe.
ah… i never knew this story before. thats really unfortunate… the actions of those nationals caused over a hundred thousand japanese immigrants to lose their livelihood
thats a bullshit attempt to take guilt off the japanese for the bullshit they did
so 1st my Grandfather flew with Claire L. Chennault's AVG
yes pre war America took the ZERO very seriously , they knew after engagements with the P40 that the current crop of carrier fighters were not going to be equal to the ZERO, hence the rush on getting the p38 into service in JULY 1941(yes airforce not navy) during the early months over china , the Zero was knocking the P40 out of the sky at a ratio of 4 to 1, but once the P40 Pilots changed tactics (Which James "Jimmy" Thach brought to the Navy) it reversed to 4 to 1 in favor of the P40. But remember this my friends and this is all you need to know "
" I had full confidence in my ability to destroy the Grumman and decided to finish off the enemy fighter with only my 7.7 mm machine guns. I turned the 20 mm cannon switch to the "off" position, and closed in. For some strange reason, even after I had poured about five or six hundred rounds of ammunition directly into the Grumman, the airplane did not fall, but kept on flying. I thought this very odd—it had never happened before—and closed the distance between the two airplanes until I could almost reach out and touch the Grumman. To my surprise, the Grumman's rudder and tail were torn to shreds, looking like an old torn piece of rag. With his plane in such condition, no wonder the pilot was unable to continue fighting! A Zero which had taken that many bullets would have been a ball of fire by now.
— Saburo Sakai
I was lucky enough to have meet and talked with Saburo on a many occasions……….trust me when I say , He NEVER took a wildcat for granted after that. , matter of fact not one of the Japanese Pilots I've ever talked to thought that they had an advantage over the US carrier planes….except the Torpedo bombers . One of the things that gets lost in the aftermath of Midway is the fact that the Wildcat did hold it's own in air to air combat, it was only when 3 or more zeros singled out a wildcat that the Wildcat was at risk.
Contrary to myth, the Hellcat was not designed specifically to fight the Zero. The contract for the prototype XF6F-1 was signed on 30 June 1941. The "Lost Zero of the Aleutians" was found on June 10, 1942. The Hellcat had a "kill ratio" of 18-1, I believe. During the "Marianas Turkey Shoot", a navy pilot, Alexander Vraicu, shot down 6 Japanese planes, in less than 10 minutes, in a Hellcat with a bad engine. I'm not saying they were all Zeros. I'm saying the Hellcat was a tough machine. It was built by Grumman, AKA "the Grumman Iron Works".