| Imperial Japanese Navy Aichi D3A1 Type 99 “Val” Carrier Bombers prepare to take off from an aircraft carrier, possibly Akagi, during the morning of December 7, 1941. Ship in the background is the carrier Soryu. This image is frequently reproduced with the planes facing toward the right. The orientation shown here, with the planes facing toward the left, is correct. The carrier in the foreground is often supposed to be Hiryu but BII-208 was damaged in May 1941 and appears to have not taken part in the Pearl Harbor Raid. Also, this aircraft has a single fuselage stripe; Hiryu D3A1s displayed 2. The Aichi D3A1 Type 99 Kanbaku (“Dive Bomber”) closest to the camera appears to carry the tail code AI-208. Aichi D3A1 Type 99 AI-208 was an early aircraft assigned to Akagi’s 2nd dive-bomber chutai. Assigned to the 1st Koku Sentai, the Roman numeral “I” denoted the carrier Akagi – the 1st vessel within the Koku Sentai according to the administrative order of battle (which was not necessarily the same as making the vessel a flagship). A system of color-coded stripes on the rear fuselage would become a standard part of the unit marking system within Kido Butai (“Carrier Mobile Force,”) or 1st Air Fleet. Akagi’s airplanes began to display a single red stripe during the summer of 1941. Aircraft AI-208 flew to Pearl Harbor with Flying Petty Officer 2nd Class Michiji Kawai (???? – 1942), Observer/Commander, and Flying Petty Officer 3rd Class Tokuji Iizuka (January 13, 1920 -), Pilot, at the controls. In some records they trained with AI-208 and flew to Pearl Harbor in AI-218. After dropping their bomb, AI-208 was leaking fuel from its right wing tank, which had been hit by flak during the dive bombing attack on USS Maryland (BB-46). AI-208 was the 3rd wingman in Lieutenant Junior Grade Keizo Obuchi’s Shotai, and his pilot, Flying Petty Officer 1st Class Yoshiharu Tanaka. Kawai and Iizuka were blithely unaware of the damage until Obuchi wrote a message on his hand-held chalkboard ordering them to return immediately to their carrier. They gladly complied and made it back to Akagi on their own. Iizuka later recalled in his memoirs, “Over Pearl we both must have been tense, but on the other hand, somewhat cool. After bombing the battleship in the harbor we looked down on Ford Island and strafed an airfield nearby as instructed.** After that, we retreated toward the sea off the Honolulu coast. There we circled and waited for the others to show up. We were followed and attacked by a enemy [Curtiss] P-40 [Warhawk] fighter plane.” Pilot Gen Gotoh (???? – December 9, 1941), who had participated in the attack with us, engaged 1 of these P-40s in an air duel [with 2nd Lieutenant George S. Welch (May 10, 1918 – October 12, 1954) and 2nd Lieutenant Kenneth M. Taylor (December 23, 1919 – November 25, 2006)]. Both ended up shooting each other down off Honolulu. The enemy plane went down and so did ours. Because we had observed this air duel, both were credited as having been shot down [Welch wasn’t shot down – his plane smoked, and he landed to rearm. Gotoh survived the crash, buried his observer Flying Petty Officer 2nd Class Michiji Utsugi (???? – December 7, 1941), and then engaged the 55th Coast Artillery until shot down days later.] “While continuing to circle, our Shotai leader [Obuchi] alerted us that fuel was spurting out from our wing tank. While engaged in the dive-bombing, I had heard a “knock” “knock” sound, which must have been the noise of enemy machine gun bullets hitting our plane. At the time we did not know of this, but we noticed the damage later. Looking at the spots where the bullets hit, they appeared to have been made by a 7.7 millimeter machine gun [Americans used 7.62 millimeter / thirty caliber ammunition]. If they had been from a thirteen millimeter gun [Americans used 12.7 millimeter / fifty caliber] we probably would not have been able to fly. My wing petrol tank had taken three bullet hits. When I first noticed it, fuel was already leaking out in fairly big spurts. It had to be coped with just right! I thought of making an emergency landing at the pre-appointed place, however, we decided to fly back alone without waiting for the others to form up.” “The Aichi D3A1 Type 99 dive-bomber could keep flying for about eight hours after takeoff. In the case of the attack on Hawaii, the one-way flight had taken a bit longer than two hours. Given the thirty minutes used over Hawaii, it meant we could safely spend slightly less than five hours in order to return to our carrier. So we should have had at least two hours of fuel to spare. Therefore, as mentioned before, we had taken three machine gun bullet hits in the wing tank and the fuel was spurting out. Two bullets hit the center part of the plane’s right wing; the third entered about thirty centimeters (one foot) behind the observer’s cockpit. So, what I did then was to open up the fuel valve to the leaking wing tank. By doing so, the engine sucked the fuel from the leaking tank to some extent, thus slowing the rate of leak. This procedure, I hoped, would also compensate for some of the fuel leaking by diverting some to be consumed by the engine. This proved to be an effective emergency measure.” “Even under normal conditions, getting back to the carrier itself would have been no easy task. We would have been flying around four hours after takeoff. In the meantime the carriers themselves could have moved away over a hundred kilometers. Of course, for security reasons, we could not use our wireless for help. So, in short, getting back depended, more or less, on guesswork. After flying off the carrier the first thing we had to do was to calculate the distance to Hawaii. By flying at cruising speed it would take close to two hours to get there. Before takeoff, we were briefed as to what direction, in degrees, the carriers will go after our takeoff. We did not take notes of this on our air chart so that the enemy would not be able to know the carriers’ position should we have been shot down and the maps recovered by the enemy.” “We were then to make our own navigation calculations and determine the destination of our carriers six hours after flying us off. In doing this we always included the drift in our calculation. Unless we first calculated the wind speed at a certain height and at certain degrees, a big miscalculation could have been made. We also had to make a drift calculation by taking a look at the surface of the ocean in order to judge the strength and direction of the wind. This is common knowledge. When flying over land, the smoke from a chimney teaches us a very good lesson about the wind. In order to help us with our navigation, the fleet would have destroyers placed several kilometers apart. In our case, about fifty kilometers (thirty miles) away from the carrier, there was one of our submarines on the surface with a white cloth on it resembling an ordinary sail. This would show us the way back to the task force’s position. What a relief it was when we saw that submarine!” “We were teenagers of nineteen then and had flown over five hours to return without losing our way. Even now I wonder how we ever made it back!” AI-208 hit the crash barrier on landing, bending the rear fuselage at right angles. The wrecked machine, however, was brought back to Japan and not thrown overboard. Kawai died in air combat with another pilot in the Solomon Islands. Iizuka trained shimpu (kamikaze) pilots in the Philippines in 1944-1945. He made. His last flight on August 15, 1945, just before the Japanese surrender. | |
| Image Filename | wwii1974.jpg |
| Image Size | 1.67 MB |
| Image Dimensions | 5756 x 4570 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | Imperial Japanese Navy |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | December 7, 1941 |
| Location | |
| City | Oahu |
| State or Province | Hawaii |
| Country | United States |
| Archive | Naval History and Heritage Command |
| Record Number | 80-G-182259 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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