Up until he was shot down by a flight of P38's it was admiral Yamamoto. On April 18, 1943, over the Solomon Islands In the South Pacific, Lanphier shot down Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander-in-chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy and … But they were surprised to see not one, but two Mitsubishi bombers, or Bettys. We were the only ones who had aircraft with the range to get up there to Bougainville, where the Admiral was scheduled to land.
Pieces of the cowling flew up and hit me. He flew fighter missions on Guadalcanal and in China, where he was shot down in 1944, then eluded Japanese troops. There is glory for the whole team.
After that I am unsure of his replacement. Killing the admiral would not merely avenge the surprise Pearl Harbor attack of Dec. 7, 1941, but would also deprive Japan of its foremost naval strategist and a national hero.The P-38 Lightning fighters flew for some two and a half hours, skimming the waves to avoid coastal spotters and enemy radar. Only two Betty bombers were involved; Yamamoto's was shot down over Bougainville with no survivors; the second went into the ocean and Ugaki lived to tell about it. Zacharias, was that when word came in that Yamamoto was flying to Bouganville, After I had passed it, I looked behind me and saw some black smoke. He received the Navy Cross for the Yamamoto mission and was also awarded two Silver Stars. bombers, which turned out to be Yamamoto's plane. “We mean for you to nail him if you have to ram him in the air. Major Mitchell, that means Lightnings.” But the Air Force stood by its belated shared recognition, and in 1996 a federal appeals court rejected Mr. Barber's request for intervention.Rex Barber, a native of Culver, Ore., joined the Army Air Forces after attending Oregon State University. ''I banked slightly and lost sight of the Bettys.
Admiral Yamamoto, commander of the Imperial Japanese Navy's Combined Fleet, was the Harvard-educated, poker-playing mastermind of the December 7, 1941, attack. The definitive and dramatic account of what became known as "Operation Vengeance" -- the targeted kill by U.S. fighter pilots of Japan's larger-than-life military icon, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the naval genius who had devised the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor. “We’re going to get this bird,” the Navy planners told Mitchell and Lanphier. But he’ll be taking off more than 635 miles away from here, and only good long-range flying will intercept him. Imamura had narrowly escaped being shot down over Bougainville two months earlier, and he and others urged Yamamoto to cancel his tour. Barber turned away to attack the other bomber as Yamamoto's After the admiral’s death, Japan never again won a major battle in the Pacific War. He’d obtained a piece of the aircraft and thought a painting of it would make for a valuable investment when displayed together. That’s how I obtained pieces of Yamamoto’s aircraft forty years later. ... All reports conclude that Rex Barber indeed was the pilot who shot down the plane carrying Yamamoto.
impacts. Adding to the problem was the fact that when the flight returned to Guadalcanal there was such rejoicing that there was no official debriefing or interrogation Lanphier was yelling that he had shot down the bomber carrying Yamamoto. The American authorities did not tell of the raid until the war ended, to avoid tipping off the Japanese that their code had been broken.In September 1945, the War Department gave Mr. Lanphier, by then a lieutenant colonel, sole credit for shooting down Yamamoto, based on his account that he hit the lead bomber with a burst of fire that sheared off a wing. Mr. Barber, who also gained half credit, together with Lieutenant Holmes, for downing Ugaki's plane, eventually sought to gain sole credit for the shooting down of Yamamoto. This position was supported by the Second Yamamoto Mission Association, observations of the sole surviving Zero pilot, and even a letter Lanphier wrote to General Condon (claiming he shot down a bomber over the sea) and evidence from the bomber wreckage. It also generated a longstanding controversy. Yamamoto was Japan’s most prominent naval officer during World War II. inspected the crash site to determine direction of the bullet Imamura had narrowly escaped being shot down over Bougainville two months earlier, and he and others urged Yamamoto to cancel his tour. Mitchell’s P-38s intercepted and shot down the Mitsubishi G4M “Betty” bomber carrying Yamamoto. He retired from the Air Force in 1961 as a colonel.He is survived by his wife, Margaret, two sons, two sisters and three grandchildren.As for the long-running controversy, Julius Jacobson, another of the pilots on the Yamamoto mission, remarked in 1997, ''There were 15 of us who survived, and as far as who did the effective shooting, who cares? The way our unit commander plane with gunfire until it began to spew smoke from its left The message read: THE YAMAMOTO CONTROVERSY: Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was the Commander in Chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy in WWII.