[Alberta Special Issue for the 70th Anniversary of the Anti-Fascist Victory] Zhang Zhaohong: A Chinese soldier died in the Zero War

[Alberta Special Issue for the 70th Anniversary of the Anti-Fascist Victory] Zhang Zhaohong: A Chinese soldier died in the Zero War Phoenix City Zhang Zhaohong commemorated the 70th anniversary of the victory of the Anti-Fascist War...

Phoenix City Zhang Zhaohong commemorated the 70th anniversary of the Anti-Fascist War Victory Spirit (4) The Zero fighter, known in Japanese as "Zero 戦" - れいせん, was the main carrier-based fighter of the Imperial Japanese Navy in World War II. It was Japan's most famous fighter during World War II. "Ling Jian" was named after it was put into service in the year 2600 of the Imperial Era. The Zero is Japan's most produced fighter aircraft. It was designed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and a total of 10,449 aircraft were produced. It entered service in July 1940. The Zero fighter can be seen from the Chinese battlefield to the entire Pacific theater. The Zero has a small turning radius, fast speed, and long range. In the early days of the Pacific War, the Zero's performance overwhelmed the US military fighter jets, especially its maneuverability and endurance. At that time, American F2A "Buffalo", P-40 "War Eagle" and other fighter jets could be said to be helpless in the face of the Zero. At that time, there was a lack of analysis of the Zero fighter. Although Chennault had given performance information about the Zero fighter to the United States, it was not taken seriously. In addition, due to the adoption of wrong tactics that led to successive defeats, the Zero fighter became a myth of invincibility, and the Allies were highly awe of it. According to official U.S. military documents, the exchange ratio of Zero fighters to U.S. fighter jets in the early stages of the war was 1:6. The only bright spot for the Allies during those days was the Flying Tigers. On December 20, 1941, when the Japanese air raided Kunming, the Flying Tigers participated in the war for the first time. The Flying Tigers' P-40Bs were all painted with scary shark mouths to demoralize Japanese pilots. Although the P-40B is not as maneuverable as the Zero Fighter A6M2, its dive speed is much faster. Taking advantage of this advantage, the Flying Tigers adopted high-speed dives and hit-and-run tactics to avoid entanglement with Zero. Before the Flying Tigers were merged into the 14th Air Force in 1942, they had destroyed 286 Japanese aircraft (both in the air and on the ground) and lost only 13 pilots. Elsewhere, the Flying Tigers' 3rd Squadron is defending Rangoon, Burma. During the Japanese bombings from December 23 to 25, 1941, the third squadron of the Flying Tigers "shot down about 90 bombers." Since the Flying Tigers achieved their first air combat victory since the Japanese Zero fighter planes wreaked havoc on the Chinese battlefield, and subsequently achieved a record number of downed Japanese aircraft when the Allied forces lost in the Burmese battlefield, they received vigorous publicity from the United States and China in the early days of the Pacific War. In the early days of the war, the Zero dominated the skies in Hong Kong, Singapore, the Philippines and even the Indian Ocean in the Asia-Pacific region. But in June 1942, the Allies finally broke the days when the Zero dominated the sky and was invincible. At the Battle of Midway, a Zero loaded with fuel was destroyed on the aircraft carrier's flight deck just before takeoff. This was a turning point. On June 3, a Zero took off from the Ryujo to attack Dutch Harbor. Due to a fuel leak on the way back, it was unable to return to the mothership. It made an emergency landing on the tundra of Akutan, a deserted island. The fuselage overturned and broke the pilot's neck. Five weeks later, an American search team discovered the Zero. The U.S. military immediately transported the aircraft back to the United States, repaired it, and conducted test flights. The Zero's shortcomings were finally discovered, and the report was quickly sent to the Pacific battlefield to help frustrated American pilots improve their tactics. In addition, the U.S. military designed new fighter aircraft based on the Zero's shortcomings, saving the lives of hundreds of Allied pilots, and finally defeated the Zero aircraft that had dominated the Pacific skies for 6 months. (The picture below shows the first Zero fighter captured by the US military.)

The F-6F "Bad Woman" fighter jet launched by the United States in 1943 completely lost the Zero's performance advantages. The Zero was also at a numerical disadvantage, so in the air-to-air battles over the Truk and Mariana seas, the Zero almost became the target of being hunted. In June 1944, the Zero A6M5 participated in the Battle of Mariana for the first time. On the 19th, 108 Zeros escorted the torpedo planes and bombers of the task force attacking Spruance. However, due to the obstruction of the F6F Hellcat and the attack of the U.S. fleet's anti-aircraft firepower, Japan lost nearly 300 aircraft. The Japanese Navy was severely weakened and was unable to organize an effective air offensive thereafter. This is the famous "Mariana Turkey Hunt". Since then, the Zero lost its former unparalleled prestige. By the end of the war, the Zero fighter was reduced to a "kamikaze" suicide attack aircraft. James Sing, a Chinese soldier from Alberta, is the uncle of former federal justice Deng Xinping. He was killed in a kamikaze suicide attack by a Japanese Imperial Zero aircraft during World War II. James?#37011; was commissioned into the United States Air Force Air Corps in June 1942. James began to go to the North American Aviation School in Texas for technical training on the B25 bomber. Four months later, he and the flight crew went to California for further training. In April 1943, their 345th Bomb Squadron received orders to set out for the South Pacific. On November 9, 1944, on Leyte Island in the Philippines, James and 345 other ground echelon soldiers docked on the Thomas Nelson Liberty warship for 2 weeks, waiting to unload the ship's uy cargo. On November 18, 1944, the Kamikaze commandos of the Japanese Empire drove a Zero aircraft to attack. The aircraft dropped a bomb on the door, and its 30-ton main arm was blown off and fell to the side. Afterwards, the plane filled with fuel hit the deck and exploded. Gasoline was splashed everywhere on the ship, and it immediately exploded and caught fire. 89 of the 345 soldiers on board were bombed and burned to death, and more than 100 others were injured. It was during this kamikaze suicide attack by the Zero aircraft that James Deng was burned by gasoline and lost his young life. "Kamikaze Special Attack Team" was a suicide attack carried out by Japan at the end of World War II to save its defeated situation, using the Bushido spirit and using "one man, one machine, one bomb for one ship" to attack American ship formations, landing forces and fixed cluster targets. During the war, 3,912 kamikaze fighters lost their lives, a total of 81 ships of various types were sunk, and 195 were damaged. Most of the fighter planes used were Type Zeros. The most famous suicide weapons are Sakura bombs and Kaiten torpedoes. After the war, Japan also attempted to use the suicide notes of kamikaze attackers to apply for the Memory of the World Heritage list, but it was rejected by UNESCO.

>Alberta Chinese soldier martyr James Sing

The Japanese Zero aircraft that dominated for a while