JAPANESE PILOTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 January 1943, Page 4

JAPANESE PILOTS

AMERICAN’S OPINION AFTER GUADALCANAL. NO IMPROVEMENT ON EARLIER TRAINING. The Japanese have learned American flying instructions very well, but they have not improved on them according to Captain Joseph Foss, a United States Marine fighter pilot who is in Australian for a “spell” after six weeks on Guadalcanal. He said that many of the Japanese learned their flying in America before the war, and had become good fliers but they had improved their technique since. Captain Foss should know (states the “Sydney Morning Herald”). He made 30 flights from Henderson field, and shot down 22 Japanese aircraft — four each on two consecutive days, three each on two other days. He ha£ not always come off best, for three “deadstick” landings and one descent on the ocean have come his way. He is 28 years old, and hails from Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Zeros are good fighters, Captain Foss says, but the American Grummans “can handle them.” The Zeros are very light and manoeuvrable, and can turn in the smallest space, but they fall to pieces if hit in a vunerable spot. Of Japanese bombers, he says: “They come in like blind men. They are hot hard. We can easily pick them off.” Captain Foss added, however, that the Japanese generally were good flyers, and they had good observation posts, which enabled them to destroy a number of Grummans taking off to intercept. These losses, however, did not deter the Marine flyers or antiaircraft gunners, for on October 25 the Americans destroyed 23 out of 25 Japanese bombers and fighters, and losses similar in proportion were inflicted on several occasions.