Victory
42
Biography
lyozoh Fujita was one of only two Navy pilots with at least, in one day, ten aerial victories. The son of a doctor and a midwife, he was born in 1917 in Shandong Province, China. he began to take an interest in a naval career while attending secondary school. His school results facilitated his entry into Etajima, within the class of 1938. The young EV2. completed his pilot training in 1940.
For Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, the EVI. Fujita took off from the aircraft carrier Sorvii as a squadron leader in the second wave of escort fighters. After a few passes of "strafing", his Zero was buffeted by the blast and shrapnel of an explosion from one of his own targets.
JNAF pilots entered 1942 with excellent morale and complete confidence in the Zero. A Navy pilot then had to have completed between 50 and 100 flight hours and four or five landings to be assigned to an aircraft carrier, and even the youngest pilots in the fleet totaled at least 500 flight hours. @LV. lyozoh Fujita was among all those pilots, puffed up with so many glorious accumulated victories, who were engaged in the battle of Midway. He entered the fighting on June 4, in a spirit of unshakeable confidence, by intercepting torpedo bombers during a mission to protect the Japanese naval air force. Guided by radio to enemy positions by the fleet radar operators, Fujita tested for the first time a new tactic which consisted of diving into the enemy formation rather than attacking it from behind. He crossed it, firing continuously, and was surprised to see two or three planes fall, shrouded in smoke.
"That's the method!" exclaimed Fujita. He repeated these maneuvers, shooting down four more torpedo bombers (including three in cooperation) and three fighters (including two in cooperation). Unfortunately for him, his plane was hit by Japanese fire and he had to evacuate his plane. Rocking on great waves and without hope of rescue, he resigned himself to death but, by chance, he was picked up by a destroyer after spending only four hours in the water.
“After Midway, many of the surviving pilots were taken out of service to become instructors,” Fujita lamented. "By removing veterans from the frontline units, we were losing our combat capabilities. In the long run, this was a terrible burden on our pilots. I believe that about 10% of our veteran pilots fell at Midway
The LV. Fuiita was then assigned as here a division on the aircraft carrier Hi.vo. He fought in the Solomon Islands and at Guadalcanal and, in November 1943, was appointed chief of the 301 Kû, under the command of the CF. Katsutoshi Yagi.
Before the end of the war, the LV. Fujita took part in the battles of Iwo Jima, Formosa and in the defense of the Japanese archipelago. He ended the war on the base of Fukuchiyama, awaiting a final counterattack against the American invaders, which never managed to be put on foot.
The final count of planes shot down by the CC. Fujita is unclear. According to historians, he scored 11 victories, although other sources put his score at 42. . Officially, seven of his victories were confirmed.
After the war, lyozoh Fujita was an airline pilot with Japan Air Lines, before retiring in 1978. This former president of the Zero Pilots Association was invited as a speaker at the Battle of Midway Symposium, based on Naval Air Station Pensacola in 1988. He currently resides in Tokyo.