The Tainan Air Group - Air Show at Port Moresby

L/E of 199 Giclee Prints, 10 A/P, 10 Canvas A/P's
S/N by the Artist
Image Size: 27" x 18"
Paper Size: 31.5" x 24"

Plane Type:Zero

Certainly the most well-known of all Imperial Japanese Navy air groups, the Tainan Air Group deserved its reputation as it cleared the skies of Allied aircraft during the desperate days of December 1941 through most of 1942. A land-based unit, the Tainan Air Group, or Kokutai (Ku) began gaining their notorious reputation early in the war with the Allies when the group conducted fighter sweeps over the airfields of Luzon beginning on December 8th 1941 (still December 7 in the US), decimating Douglas MacArthur’s air forces and clearing the way for the Japanese invasion of the Philippines. Intensely followed by the Japanese news media which magnified already exaggerated Tainan Ku victory claims, the group’s ace fighter pilots’ names soon became household words in the home islands. Producing more aces than any other Japanese Navy Ku, the Tainan also had many of the nation’s top scorers, including Nishizawa Hiroyoshi, the Japanese record-holder for WW II. These top scorers, besides Nishizawa, included Sakai Saburo, Sasai Junichi, Ota Toshio,Handa Watari, and Shimikawa Masaaki. Sakai, seen here leading Nishizawa and Ota in a hubris-fueled impromptu airshow demonstration of flying skill over Port Moresby would be the only one of these three leading aces to survive the entire war. Following a fighter sweep of the Port Moresby area airfields Sakai leads the unauthorized demonstration by performing several perfect tight formation loops while attracting no anti-aircraft response from the ground on May 17th 1942. Cooked up by Nishizawa the previous day, these three friends who were known in the group as “the cleanup trio” incurred a reprimand from Lt. Sasai Junichi and Capt. Saito Masahisa. The three young conspirators agreed amongst themselves that the opprortunity to flat-hat above the Australian troops was well worth the reprimand, however. By August 7th the USMC landings at Guadalcanal brought the Tainan Ku into conflict with US Navy and USMC pilots, who subsequently killed Ota and seriously wounded Sakai, who lost an eye during a duel with a rear gunner in a Douglas Dauntless. Eventually, Nishizawa would lose his life, too after having been shot down while a mere passenger in an Army bomber over the Philippine island of Mindoro, October 25th 1944 by a VF-14 Hellcat pilot, Lt.(JG) Harold Newell. PLANE JUNKIE - The Tainan Air Group - Air Show at Port Moresby by Jack Fellows (Zero)