No AA. Rookie Japanese pilots, by that point it was almost always a rookie, facing hardened veterans . Not nearly as dangerous as German AA, which was altogether much better from AAA crew effectiveness, AAA doctrine effectiveness, to early-warning radar, better late-war aircraft. This comment is a major overgeneralization, but this footage is from about a month from the end of the war .
@@sochinese Also, Japanese AA defenses were nowhere near "the works" that Germany had late in the war. Tons of AA guns, radar. Things that Japan didn't have much of. Even then you can still see a bunch of late war gun camera footage of Allied fighters strafing anything that moved on the ground in Germany. By the time Allied fighters were freely flying over Germany shooting anything up that moved on the ground, the Luftwaffe was a ghost of itself. Fighters were few and what pilots that made up their fighter forces were mostly poorly trained, woefully inexperienced men flying against enemies with full training and combat experience.
While a considerable amount of strafing was done, it's worth remembering that the sample size is biased. There were not 'bomb cameras' recording all the work of Helldivers, Avengers, and the like.
They were strafing the cities by the end, there was almost no fighters or AA left, the fighters escorting the bombers had nothing else to do but hit more "precise" targets (small boats, trains etc)
Interesting how many of the targeted aircraft don't seem to change course at all, even after a few rounds have hit them. That would seem to me to be the signal to jam all the controls into a corner and be going some other direction.
@@The_OneManCrowd funny part is these teen pilots are remembered not for this but through their relatives on what studs they were when the truth is more like what we see. people are blow hards
I don't know about that but I think sudden spike of G force would knock them. But you're right it makes me wonder why they didnt manage to evade after being shot multiple times
@@ranggasaktibudiputra1547 They didn't have the skill or training. By this point all of Japan's best, 2nd best, and 3rd best pilots were long dead, gone years earlier in the war.
@@AmishHitman73.Archive I know. Millions of teenage warriors lost their lives in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East during the last century of world warfare. Such a shame all of the lost knowledge and inventions that went with them to an early grave 😕 😪 🤬
I’m so thankful for our Heavenly Father and His choice to allow this great generation to be in this era. Just imagine if this generation was born back then? We all would be speaking Japanese and German.
I'm puzzled as to why the pilots seem to always strafe the broadside of a ship instead of strafing the ship along its long axis. I'd think it'd be more effective from one end to the other instead of broadside.
Broadside allows the bullets to possible make holes below the water line and maybe sink the ship. The bullets along the top long axis of the ship is not going to sink it.
@@peatmoss4415 Unless the boat is really small, even alot of .50 cal bullet holes along the waterline are unlikely to sink the boat. If the boat is small enough, the .50 cal bullet would punch through the boat holing the bottom of the boat having the same effect as hitting the waterline. I assume though that the pilots were taught to follow your logic since firing at the broadside seems to be the norm.
Going across increased the chance of a hit. Going along the length of it would increase potential damage, but also meant risking a complete miss. Running vertical to a moving target, like a ship, gives it greater potential to maneuver. Horizontal allows only changes in speed. The doctrine of going across or straight changed during the war as targeting improved. In a lot of movies they'll show strafing attacks running up the length of a column of road vehicles. While very cinematic, it was rare early on.
They should use British Navy Practicies where these gun camera films are used to calculate bullets on target v bullets wasted & charge the pilot the cost of every bullet off target. That would improve accuracy!!
these clips must have come individually in a pot luck bucket as there is no order to these but clearly through my first viewing i can see this was not organized whatsoever. the lighthouse is but one example
Let's be polite to the brave pilot flying the plane and say his guns needed to be zeroed in because he nearly missed the whole of Japan most of the time.
It"s really difficult to aim from a firing platform traveling at 300 mph or more while getting dangerously close to the ground, planes don't change directions instantly so they have to constantly keep their bearing while simultaneously trying to get rounds on targets they can only guess at the range of with guns set to converge at a set distance. And it get even more difficult when firing at a moving target.
I agree that there was a lot of indiscriminate shooting of civilian areas..... But it's all balanced by the way the Japanese army treated the people in the areas they invaded
@@KevinBreak and you will be in exactly the same situation when you arrive. Why shoot at a lighthouse at a time when you have total air and sea superiority? ah well, all history now
@@aerisarmis9666 In July 1945 America pretty much did. Of course, if Japan didn't surrender I doubt they'd have obligingly activated the lighthouse to guide an invasiom fleet in safely!
That's one thing you never saw from British and Commonwealth pilots.The straffing of civilian homes and areas by individual pilots. Higher standards I suppose.
Once the Germans started bombing cities in the Blitz we targeted civilians as well. We probably didn't strafe civilians in occupied Europe, but I imagine we did in Germany itself. Firebombing Hamburg and Dresden killed 10s of thousands.
Wir alle kümmern uns um americana unsere gus dur, unsere otto atahi und unser lebene!!!Grüße aus toi!!! Danke für die Hilfe an die örtliche Polizei nach dem Unfall, da wieder raus zufahren. Und ja ich bin der Fahrer Richtig klasse! Top Aktion von der Polizei Работа полиции хороша )) перекрыли дорогу и вышел с машины главный и не показал машине спереди жест "объезд".
Amen. I see a lot of historian talk about how many lies were taken when the 2 A-bombs that were dropped. I wonder how many lives were save by the A-bombs because they ended the war before an invasion was needed..
@@brushwolfRussia would have invaded the northern islands on October 1st 1945. It would have been very bloody but would have been over by January at the latest.
@@andrewpestotnik5495 That's been the prediction of every war in the last 160 years. Sadly it rarely has been true. As the most fanatical belligerents, as a population, of WW2 I really doubt there would have been a quick end to hostilities on their homeland.
It's very noticeable how much less flammable late war Japanese aircraft were once they realised armour and self-sealing fuel tanks were worth a bit of extra weight on the airframe. Not a single Japanese plane in this video caught fire even though some of them had huge chunks blown off them.
We had cut off Japans oil supply’s by mid 1944 . They didn’t catch fire because they had almost no fuel on board …. They were fueled with enough fuel for only 45 minutes of flight time .
I was wondering the same thing, not knowing a lot about late war Japanese aircraft, but the ones in this film seem to take multiple hits without "flaming".
Not many clips of air-to-air combat in this video, so hard to draw a firm conclusion about how much "less flammable" Japanese aircraft had become in July 1945. That said, plane shown at 2:06 has flames in the cockpit area.
@@chuckstewart7331my guess is: no matter how much gas is in the tank... when there is vapour in a tsnk, even 1/5 full... it will ignite like new years fireworks
In the Osaka Peace Museum there's tales of crowds outside factories, or even sheltering under bridges, being strafed. I imagine footage like that is kept under lock and key, or has been "lost", though. At Tamatsukuri station there's still some visible holes in the metalwork from shrapnel or bullets.
@@michaelmartin9022 : I hear ya. Some amazing footage has appeared on youtube. But nothing like that. P-47 pilots shot up livestock left & right but no footage exists. Censorship.
Seems like they were just scouting for military targets and once they went bingo they just dropped the bullets on anything before coming back to base lol
If it was edited it would be better. Lots of the same targets but scattered all thru the video. Just saying. One plane spots a target then the other planes all follow.
I have noticed something, when you see fighters strafing in Europe, every once in a while something just blows up. Trains, trucks, buildings just explode !! But you never see anything blow up like that when our fighters straf in Japan ??? We're they THAT low on ammo and bombs ???
I could be wrong but from my guess I would assume that due to how crippled Japan was in late 1945 they’ve pretty much used most of their weapons and resources to defend their country also some of it could of been already destroyed by the bomb raids they’ve had almost often by that time so, it might make sense to why there’s barely any explosives in the film
Not as many bombing runs were done over Japan because of the surrounding population. In Europe there was a more urgent takeover happening, therefore The Blitz bombing of Britain and the rest of Europe was used to put pressure on the Axis forces and drive them out of fortifications
Holy crap! Some of this footage could have been from my uncle's plane. He was one of the first Americans on the ground after the surrender. When the emperor told the Japanese to stand down, they did. No animosity after he landed. I married a Japanese woman and lived there for two years. I got the perspective from both sides.
Ого!!! как круто! На землю он там спустился после Хиросимы, Нагасаки? Жену где искал, в центрах пострадавших от ядерной атаки? Так и вижу как он шагает с флагом звездно поласатым, а подыхающие рядом на койках от ожогов, радиации и т.д японцы благодарят его за принесенную демократию. Сила в единстве, никакой неприязни.
"one of the first" lol likely 1 of 10,000 so yeah some of the first. always allllways relatives over blow their relatives involvement in the war lol smh rme i have often found people that focus on their relatives past is looking for attention or trying to cover up their own inadequacies
In reality if it helps shipping convoys navigate it’s a valuable target. Plus it probably had AA gun emplacements as a spotting tower. Just my guess for what it’s worth
Besides its utility as an observation/early warning post, the Japanese and Germans often used any robust, elevated structures like those as flak towers.
It denies the Japanese food supply so that they would starve slowly and not be able to fight or manufacture, and so that they would be more liable to surrender.
@@bradleyhoskins1023 Makes sense but fishing boats can be repared very easily and it doesnt make sense unless they are sunk. Then the question remains does it makes sense to waste so much ammo on these boats ?
There's a line in Kurt Vonnegut 'Slaughterhouse 5.' A group of American pows are cleaning up debris after the bombing of Dresden. A fighter plane swoops down and strafes them, then flies away. Vonnegut's sardonic line: "The idea was to hasten the end of the war."
a little for information... The Battle of Okinawa, also known as Operation Iceberg, is an operation to capture the Japanese island of Okinawa by US troops with the support of the American and British fleets. Date April 1 - June 23, 1945. American military losses in the battle amounted to 48,025 people killed, wounded and missing, of which about 12 thousand died or missing - about twice as many as the number of losses in the battles on Iwojima and Guadalcanal combined. This makes the battle in Okinawa the bloodiest battle for the Americans in the entire Pacific theater of operations and the second largest number of casualties in the entire war, second only to the Ardennes operation. During many battles on the Pacific front (such as, for example, the battle for Iwojima), the local population was not involved in hostilities, but there were a large number of local residents in Okinawa, and the Japanese decided to involve them in the defense of the island. As a result, according to various estimates, from 1/10 to 1/3 of all the inhabitants of the island died in the battle. The number of deaths by various specialists is estimated from 42 to 150 thousand people (according to data from Okinawa prefecture - more than 100 thousand people). Representatives of the US Army spoke of the final figure of 142,058 civilians, including those who were forcibly called up for service by the Japanese army. According to the Okinawa Prefecture Peace Museum, the inhabitants of the island were sandwiched between two warring parties - the United States and Japan. In 1945, the Japanese army showed complete indifference to the fate and security of the island and its inhabitants, and Japanese soldiers used the local population as a "human shield" against American attacks. Soldiers of the imperial army took food from the inhabitants of the island, thereby causing famine among the population and forcing people to leave the shelters. About 1 thousand people were killed by Japanese soldiers for speaking the local dialect - in this way the authorities fought against espionage. Operation Downfall is a plan for the Allied invasion (mainly US troops) of Japan at the end of World War II. The operation was to consist of two parts: operations "Olympic" (Olympic) and "Coronet" (Coronet). During Operation Olympic, which was scheduled to begin in October 1945, using recently occupied Okinawa as a bridgehead, the southern third of one of the main Japanese islands, *Kyushu*, was to be captured. Later, in the spring of 1946, a landing force supported by Kyushu aircraft was to land on the Kantō Plain, Honshu Island, surrounding Tokyo during Operation Coronet. A lighthouse is a means of navigation equipment of the coast of large reservoirs in the form of a capital structure, often a tower type, designed to compare the picture observed by the boatmaster with a certain place on a geographical map, having precisely established coordinates, which helps to clarify the position of the ship on the water surface. welcome to Wikipedia I did not find reliable sources, perhaps because I did not dig into this much, but I saw a lot where during the war at the end, when there were no specific goals and tasks, the fighter unit went on free hunting at will to certain permitted places. Match 2 operations - this is the Battle of Okinawa and Operation "Downfall," the date and place. Obviously, these shootings do not cause significant harm and do not have a specific goal. The priority of the purposes was banal is simple - transport hubs, factories, the plants and other. It was the main goal to make the Japanese have nothing to fight - to make them the least dangerous. And when in the hands of an old rifle and a bayonet-knife with a shovel - it is much easier to win, and the losses of soldiers are much less. But here there is a second moment, which is much deeper and more important. Periodic such shootings force civilians to leave their homes and push mentally to stop it faster and to give up. Here are the bombing of certain cities and points - there the effect was completely different and it was exactly the task.