US Army

First "Zero" captured

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The first Japanese fighter plane, the A6M2 "Zero", captured by American Forces, is loaded onto a vessel for study and shipment to the continental US on July 1942. During the attack on Dutch Harbor on June 3, 1942, the plane, flown by flight petty officer Tadayoshi Koga, (from the aircraft carrier Ryudze) was damaged by ground machine gun fire and the pilot decided to make an emergency landing on a designated place on Akutan Island (Aleutians). When reaching ground, the plane overturned and the pilot died. The patrolling Japanese submarine on duty there failed to locate it, but an American search party found it on June 11. The aircraft was only slightly damaged, was quickly repaired and given a few test flights. As a result of intelligence information gained from these tests, American tacticians were able to devise ways to defeat the Zero, which was the Imperial Japanese Navy's primary fighter plane throughout the war.