Mitsubishi A6M Zero
The Mitsubishi A6M Zero was the Imperial Japanese Navy's main carrier fighter of the Second World War. Designed by Mitsubishi and also built in numbers by Nakajima, it first flew in 1939 and entered service in 1940 as the Type 0 carrier fighter. Exceptionally light and manoeuvrable, it outclassed Allied fighters early in the Pacific war, but its unprotected fuel tanks and lack of armour told against it as faster, tougher Allied fighters appeared; even so, 10,939 were built, more than any other Japanese combat aircraft of the war, and it served to the war's end.
Why It Mattered
The Mitsubishi A6M Zero was the Imperial Japanese Navy's principal carrier fighter of the Second World War, and in the war's opening phase it outclassed every Allied fighter sent against it. It took its name from the navy's Type 0 carrier-fighter designation; Allied airmen knew it by the reporting name Zeke, though the name Zero is the one that stuck. Production came to 10,939 aircraft, more Zeros than any other Japanese model of combat aircraft, and the type served in a front-line role from its entry into service in 1940 until the end of the war.
Design Notes
In October 1937 the Imperial Japanese Navy issued planning requirements for a prototype carrier fighter to succeed the Mitsubishi A5M, asking for speed, climb, endurance and manoeuvrability that seemed barely compatible. Mitsubishi's chief designer, Jiro Horikoshi, concluded the requirements could be met only if the aircraft were made as light as possible, and his team saved weight everywhere it could. Much of the structure used a new aluminium alloy, extra super duralumin, and the design omitted armour plate and self-sealing fuel tanks altogether. The result was considerably lighter than American fighters, and it combined excellent manoeuvrability with very long range. The omissions had a price: fuel and pilot were left unprotected, and the lightness that made the Zero agile also made it unforgiving of battle damage. Mitsubishi designed and built the type, but many Zeros were license-built by the Nakajima Aircraft Company.
Operational History
Combat trials began in China during July 1940, and reports of the Zero's performance were met with scepticism in the West. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, 328 Zeros were in first-line units, and carrier-borne Zeros ranged across the Pacific. For the first six months of the Pacific war, the Zero outclassed all the Allied fighter aircraft sent against it. The turn came in the spring and early summer of 1942, when American carrier forces stopped the Japanese in the Coral Sea and at Midway. Allied pilots adapted: they avoided the turning and looping dogfight the Zero wanted, and instead attacked in fast passes from height, diving away before it could respond. When the P-38 Lightning, the F6F Hellcat and the F4U Corsair reached the Pacific, the lighter-armed and unprotected Zero was hard-pressed to remain competitive. Design delays and production difficulties hampered the introduction of newer Japanese fighters, so the Zero remained in production throughout the war and in front-line service to its end. In the final phases of the war, it was adapted for use in kamikaze operations.
Afterlife
Captured Zeros were shipped to the United States during the war, where the U.S. Navy tested them to learn how the type performed and where it was vulnerable. Survivors passed into museum collections; one A6M2 is held by the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Ohio. One Zero still flies in authentic condition: the Planes of Fame Air Museum's A6M5, captured in June 1944, restored to flight in 1978 and again in 2016, and still powered by its original Nakajima Sakae engine. It is currently the only authentic A6M flying; other Zeros that fly today are reconstructions, several of them powered by American engines.