List of Japanese Navy Air Force aces (Mitsubishi A6M)

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This is a list of Imperial Navy Air aces flying the Mitsubishi Zero fighter during the Pacific War.

Hiroyoshi Nishizawa: 87 (other sources mentioned 120)
Tetsuzo Iwamoto: 80 (with 14 in China)
Shoichi Sugita: 70
Saburo Sakai: 64 (2 in China)
Takeo Okamura: 54 (4 in China)
Toshio Ohta: 34
Kazuo Sugino: 32

Other Navy Aces

Air Aces in Nakajima A6M2-N "Rufe" Hydro Fighter:

Master Sergeant Kawai: 4
Master Sergeant Maruyama: 4

Air Aces in metropolitan defense (over Japan):

Captain-Petty Officer Tanimizu: 8 (in an A6M5c fighter)
Unknown Petty Officer: 4 (with Kawanishi N1K2-J Shinden-KAI "George 21", he fought against 12 F6F Hellcat, shot down four of them and forced the remaining 8 to retreat)

Air Aces over Chinese land (1940)

The unit for operative evaluations was the Yokosuka air corps, but it transferred its responsibility to 12th Rengo Kokutai under the command of Captain Kiichiro Hasegawa when this group was sent to China. Commanders and pilots of the unit:

Operative Commanders
*Tamotsu Yokoyama
*Saburo Shindo
*Koshiro Yamashita: 5 (final total 10)

Petty officers
*Saburo Kitahara: 2 (final total 10)
*Kihei Fujiwara: 4
*Yoshio Oki: 4
*Ayao Shirane: 1 (final total 11)
*Masayuki Mitsumasa: 2
*Tsutomu Iwai: 3 (final total 11)
*Toraichi Takatsuka: 3
*Kazuki Mikagami: 2
*Masaharu Miramoto: 1
*Toshiyuki Sueda: 1 (final total 10)
*Hatsuyama Yamaya: 2

This group suffered the loss of Eichi Kimura and Kichiro Kobayashi from enemy anti-aircraft fire. This unit remained under the command of Admiral Shigetaro Shimada when he led the China Air Area Fleet in the Chinese campaign.

Famous Air Units

The unit (Kokutai) with most air aces, was Tainan (in Formosa), the most famous group. They operated from Rabaul, and acquired their legendary fame over Taihoku, Philippines, Dutch Indies, Lae, Buna (New Guinea), New Britain and, in last stages of war, in defense of mainland Japan. Saburo Sakai was another member in this unit after Dutch Indies operations, from the Denpasar base on Bali.

Others famous units with air aces were 3th Air Corps (including Yoshiro Hashiguchi), 253rd Air Corps (with Tetsuzo Iwamoto and Hiroyoshi Nishizawa among its members), Genzan Air Corps, and other groups.

The Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service, similar to the German Luftwaffe idea of organizing an "All Aces" select unit Jagverband 44 equipped with Messerschmitt Me 262 A-1a jet fighters, decided to create an All Ace unit (Kokutai) with Kawanishi N1K2-J fighters towrds the end of the conflict.

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