【知ってましたか？】海軍甲事件『3番機』の生還｜山本長官が託した最後の贈り物【WarThunder短編映画】

Thank you for watching! This video is based on a viewer request. It is the early morning of April 18, 1943. Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet, is departing Rabaul to inspect the front lines and boost the morale of his troops. Brushing aside the desperate attempts of Vice Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa (Commander of the Third Fleet) and others to stop him, the Type 1 land-based attack aircraft carrying the Admiral takes off from Rabaul Airbase right on schedule. Official war records list only two Type 1 attack aircraft involved in the mission. Yet, on that day, another set of wings was indeed following close behind. Six elite fighters from the 204th Air Group—including pilots Shoichi Sugita and Kenji Yanagiya—were flying in formation to provide immediate escort. In skies thought to be under Japanese air superiority, a swarm of US P-38 Lightning fighters lay in wait just before Balale; having cracked the Japanese codes, they launched a relentless attack. The escort unit fought back with desperate tenacity. However, after a fierce dogfight, the Admiral's plane vanished into the jungle, trailing plumes of black smoke.