At the beginning of the Battle of Guadalcanal, August 7, 1942, United States forces shelled Guadalcanal and neighboring Tulagi in the Solomon Islands. Soon after the attack began, 27 Japanese bombers and an escort of 17 fighters took off from Rabaul, Japan's stronghold and strategic base in the South Pacific. Their mission was to bomb the ships that were supporting the American attack. Lieutenant Southerland commanded a group of 8 American Wildcats aboard the USS Saratoga in Wildcat Battle Unit #5192. Due to planning errors and the loss of planes to a recent training exercise, these were the only fighter cover available to patrol the landing area. Southerland's flight took off to intercept the Japanese bombers before they could reach the American ships. Southerland shot down the first Japanese aircraft of the Guadalcanal campaign, a G4M1 "Betty" bomber of the 4th Kokutai, under the command of Shizuo Yamada. After shooting down a second bomber, Southerland was engaged in a dogfight with an A6M2 "Zero" of the Tainan Kokutai. He lined up the Zero in his sights only to find his guns would not fire, probably due to damage from fire by the tailgunner from the second bomber he had downed. Although he was now defenseless, Southerland had to stay in the fight. Two more Zeros engaged him, but he successfully outmaneuvered all three of them. The dogfight was spotted by Saburo Sakai who felt the deftly handled Wildcat was winning the engagement. Sakai described the duel in his ...
Tags: WWII, pacific war, figther, dogfigth, air combat, saburo sakai, a6m, zero, pug sutherland, f4f, wildcat, ijn, usn
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