In the brief encounter, the eight tailgunners expended over 1,000 rounds of ammunition and seriously injured one of the best Japanese fighter pilots of the war. One tracer round missed his right eye by less than an inch and melted the rim of his goggles. Fragments from the bullets struck him in the chest, the left leg, the elbow and the face. As the eight tailgunners followed the Zero with their machine guns, slugs shattered the canopy glass and hit Sakai. The plane went almost vertically upwards and then fell smoking. I could see his face clearly, his body and head forced back against the headrest of the cockpit.
What Jones saw next was a testament to the firepower that was available to the tail gunners: His cockpit exploded, the canopy tore, and something flew out. Jones opened fire with Sakai only 100 feet directly astern his aircraft. In the rear seat of one of the other bombers, Aviation Ordnanceman 2nd Class Harold L. Sakai attempted to turn sharply to the right, pull up and use the Zero’s horsepower to climb away from the Americans, but he was too close. “He came in fast! I fired at him, but I just don’t know if I hit him or not,” he remembered. Rodenburg, Aviation Radioman 3rd Class James W.
In the back seat of the bomber piloted by Ensign Eldor E. Unlike the F4F Wildcat fighter, US Navy dive-bombers were protected from rear attack by a tail gunner’s position. These aircraft were from the USS Enterprise (CV-6) and were circling above Tulagi awaiting orders to drop their bombs on Japanese targets on the island below. By the time it was too late to break off the attack, Sakai realized that he was attempting to pounce on a group of dive-bombers. But at a range of just 100 yards Sakai gazed at his targets through his gunsight and reached a sober realization: these were not fighters he was approaching.
#SBD DAUNTLESS FULL#
Closing in on the American aircraft from behind at full throttle, he assumed that the element of surprise was his. Assuming that they were US Navy F4F Wildcat fighters, Sakai nosed his Zero over to begin an attack his wingman obediently following. by Martin K A MorganĪs Sakai and his wingman approached the skies above Tulagi, he spotted a group of eight American aircraft beneath him at an altitude of 7,800 feet. He had flown down with a group of other Zeros from the Japanese airfield at Rabaul, New Britain that morning for the express purpose of attacking the ships supporting the first American opposed amphibious invasion of the Second World War: the Operation WATCHTOWER landings at Gavutu, Tanambogo, Tulagi and Guadalcanal. This walk around page was first created February 2012 by M.On AugPetty Officer 1 st Class Saburo Sakai was piloting his A6M2 Type 21 Zero fighter in the skies over Sealark Channel in the Solomon Islands. Look for the 1/32 Revell kit recensie (in Dutch hier.)
In 1/32 scale Trumpeter has a kit and Matchbox / Revell an old one. In 1/48 scale of Testors, Hasegawa and Nichimo. Several plastic scale models exist of the Dauntless with 1/72 models of the old Airfix and now better Hasegawa. Photographed Summer 2019 by Ronald van Voorst (C) Copyright IPMS Nederland It is on display at the National WW2 museum in New Orleans and is on loan from the National Naval Aviation museum at Pensacola. It remained there many years before recovered from 1990 and restored. It later was used as trainer and lost in Lake Michigan. This SBD-3 with bur.no 06508 flew from 1943 a short time from the carrier Enterprise with bombing squadron 10. Photographed 2016 by Cees Hendriks (c) Copyright IPMS Nederland This Dauntless "54654" was seen at the USS Midway carrier museum at the harbour of San Diego, CA. Photographed by Cees Hendriks (c) Copyright IPMS Nederland
#SBD DAUNTLESS CODE#
Photographed Januari 2011 by Cees Hendriks (c) Copyright IPMS Nederlandĭouglas SBD-5 Dauntless with code 36176 and "B-25" at the Palm Springs Air Museum (Ca). It is on display at the San Diego Air & Space Museum, San Diego CA, USA This is a Douglas SBD-4 Dauntless coded "24" with c/n 1775. Although relatively slow and outdated when it began its combat career, it was rugged and dependable and sank more Japanese shipping than any other aircraft during the Second World War. The SBD, with name Dauntless, was the United States Navy's main dive bomber from mid-1940 until late 1943. The Douglas SBD Dauntless was an American naval dive bomber developed by the Douglas company.
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