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CAPTAIN ZENJI ABE
When Lieutenant Abe's dive-bomber tipped into its steep attack over the Battleship Arizona the
ship was already ablwe, its forward magazines having been detonated in a colossal explosion
caused by an carlier bomb dropped in the first wave, His single 250kx bomb, released at 400
meters, contributed further to the destruction below. 1,177 US servicemen were killed on the
Anzon
His recollections of the attack itself center on how well the Americans had recovered from the
surprise of the first wave just thirty minutes earlier. As squadron leader, he watched two of his
planes being shot down belore making his own successful dive on the Arizona. ‘The three
bombers that followed him were all downed by heavy enemy fire. Back at the rendezvous point,
with a number of his colleagues already dead and the shock of seeing how badly some of his
planes had been damaged, the stark reality of war hit Abe, casting its shadow over yet another
young mind.
He took part in a further five missions afier Pearl Harbor, the last of which was a No Return
Mission attacking US Task Force 58. ‘This meant an attack beyond the effective return range of
his aircraft back to the carrier - he would have to attempt a landing elsewhere near the site of the
attack. Afier locating the American fleet (3 aircrali carriers surrounded by 20 other US vessels in a
protective ring formation) he ordered his squadron to attack and launched his own aireraft into a
dive through a hail of anté-airerali fire, alter dropping his bomb he withdrew beyond range of the
ships’ guns and waited for his comrades. It was at this point that several US fighters came towards
him, He managed to evade them with the help of cloud cover, and with his fuel rapidly running
out, finally managed to land on the tiny island of Rota, 32 miles northeast of Guam in the western
Pacific. Of the 430 Japanese planes involved in the attack, all but thirty were shot down. He
subsequently surrendered to the Americans on she 15th August 1945.
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