What was commander itaya in charge of

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Photographed on battleship Nagato sometime in Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto just before his final flight. Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo. I found scant references to him in the books available to me and the dearth of information extended to the internet, where, despite diligent efforts, a search yielded only dribs and drabs of information.

On a hunch that Itaya might be better known in Japan, I searched Japanese sites and stumbled upon Japanese Wikipedia, where I found that Itaya had his own entry.

Unfortunately, the entry was skeletal, with not much more information than that available in English. Still, it was more information than I had. Bearing in mind that I know no Japanese and had to resort to imperfect searches on Japanese websites using Google Translate, below is what little information I could gather from various sources. Itaya was born July 10, , and graduated from the Naval Academy in He was a veteran of the China War and by is listed as a division officer on the Ryujo aircraft carrier.

By , he is listed as group leader on the Hiryu aircraft carrier. Pearl Harbor. He was the first to take off, guiding the other 42 Zeros to their destination. According to Peter Smith in Mitsubishi Zero , Itaya and his two wingmen shot down an unsuspecting B bomber at Hickam Field that had at that precise moment improvidentially flown in from California.

The B crew managed to land the crippled bomber and run for cover, though one unfortunate member was killed in the ensuing strafing by the Japanese Zeros. Port Darwin. Considered the single most destructive raid in Australian history by a foreign power, the raid on Port Darwin was massive, with more bombs dropped than at Pearl Harbor, though loss of life — at — was one tenth that at Pearl Harbor.

Incidentally, the four carriers at Port Darwin had all participated at Pearl Harbor and were the same four subsequently sunk at Midway. As at Pearl Harbor and Port Darwin, Itaya led Zero fighters — this time 36 — that escorted bombers from five Japanese carriers whose targets were British warships, harbor installations, and air bases in an attempt to destroy the British Easter Fleet.

Although the day before a PBY Catalina pilot spotted the five Japanese carriers and radioed in their position before it was shot down, the Japanese still achieved surprise in yet another Pearl Harbor-style weekend attack. The attack resulted in the sinking of a British carrier and several other warships and cost the lives of British subjects. Elmer Twining…in charge and ran all the way to the crash.

There were several military at the scene when I arrived. I recall seeing Private Littrell at the crash. Frank Luciano, who arrived in a command car, and Sergeant Ronald D. His billfold had some U. The map showed converging lines to a point 50 miles off Kaena Point, all originating from the northwest direction.

Lots of words in Japanese on the map. I removed all and returned to the command post with Master Sgt. Souvenir hunters swarmed over the plane immediately after Elliott left, and anything with Japanese writing quickly found its way into footlockers. However, another souvenir hunter, Private Harold Gabriel, retrieved it. Elliott sent the map and billfold with contents to the Army counterintelligence office in downtown Honolulu.

Second Lieutenant Malcolm D. Atkin and his father, Captain Robert T. Atkin, both attached to the G-2 intelligence office headquarters at Fort Shafter, had been called to the counterintelligence office when the attack began.

They were coordinating activities with their counterparts in the FBI field office next door when the package arrived from Elliott.

But at Fort Shafter Lt. Fielder knew that Hickam hoped to mount a retaliation strike, so he ordered the Atkins to deliver the map there.

Frederick L. This map had approximately 10 courses laid out on it to a point northwest of the island of Oahu, which indicated that they either had left carriers there or expected to return to carriers in that direction. The pilots of three Bs were briefed for a search mission. The map arrived just in time to redirect their flight paths northwest of Oahu. On takeoff the first B went over on its nose, ruining four propellers.

The two others continued on a fruitless eight-hour mission. That sole identification was filed at Fort Armstrong. Meanwhile, the wreckage at Fort Kamehameha had been loaded on a flatbed trailer and transported to neighboring Hickam Field.

It took all of Tuesday to get the pieces sorted out for the mock-up. Colonel E. Colonel Raley then visited the wreckage and noted that serifs on the tail code were different on the port side from that on the starboard.

Inside ten minutes' time, machine gun fire likewise transformed many of those planes into flaming wreckage. Firing only small arms and rifles in the opening stages, the Marines fought back against Kaga's fighters as best they could, with almost reckless heroism. Lieutenant Shiga remembered one particular Leatherneck who, oblivious to the machine gun fire striking the ground around him and kicking up dirt, stood transfixed, emptying his sidearm at Shiga's Zero as it roared past.

A tragic drama, however, soon unfolded amidst the Japanese attack. One Marine, Sergeant William E. Lutschan, Jr. In the exchange of gunfire that followed his resisting being taken into custody, though, he was shot dead. With that one exception, the Marines at Ewa Field had fought back to a man.

As if Akagi's and Kaga's fighters had not sown enough destruction on Ewa, one division of Zeroes from Soryu and one from Hiryu arrived on the scene, fresh from laying waste to many of the planes at Wheeler Field.

This second group of fighter pilots went about their work with the same deadly precision exhibited at Wheeler only minutes before. The raid caught master Technical Sergeant Darner's crew in the middle of changing the tires on the station's ambulance. Private First Class Mann, who by that point had managed to obtain some ammunition for his rifle, dropped down with the rest of the Marines at the garage and fired at the attacking fighters as they streaked by.

Lieutenant Kiyokuma Okajima led his six fighters down through the rolling smoke, executing strafing attacks until ground fire holed the forward fuel tank of his wingman, Petty Officer 1st Class Kazuo Muranaka. When Okajima discovered the damage to Muranaka's plane, he decided that his men had pressed their luck far enough, and began to assemble his unit and shepherd them toward the rendezvous area some 10 miles west of Kaena Point.

The retiring Japanese in all likelihood then spotted incoming planes from Enterprise CV-6 , that had been launched at to scout miles ahead of the ship in nine two-plane sections. Their planned flight path to Pearl was to take many of them over Ewa Mooring Mast Field, where some would encounter Japanese aircraft. Meanwhile, back at Ewa, after what must have seemed an eternity, the Zeroes of the first wave at last wheeled away toward their rendezvous point.

Having made a shambles of the Marine air base, Japanese pilots claimed the destruction of 60 aircraft on the ground: Akagi's airmen accounted for 11, Kaga's 15, Soryu's 12, and Hiryu's Their figures were not too far off the mark, for 47 aircraft of all types had been parked at the field at the beginning of the onslaught, 33 of which had been fully operational.

Although the Japanese had wreaked havoc upon MAG's complement of planes, the group's casualties seemed miraculously light. Apparently, the enemy fighter pilots in the first wave maintained a fairly high degree of discipline, eschewing attacks on people and concentrating their attacks on machines. Many of Ewa's Marines, however, had parked their cars near the center of the station. By the time the Japanese departed, the parking lot resembled a junk yard of mangled automobiles of various makes and models.

Overcoming the initial shock of the first strafing attack, Ewa's Marines took stock of their situation. As soon as the last of Itaya's and Shiga's Zeroes had departed, Marines went out and manned stations with rifles and.

Technical Sergeant William G. Turnage, an armorer, supervised the setting up of the free machine guns. Technical Sergeant Anglin, meanwhile, took his little boy to the guard house, where a woman motorist agreed to drive Hank home to his mother. As it would turn out, that reunion was not to be accomplished until much later that day, "inasmuch as the distraught mother had already left home to look for her son.

Master Technical Sergeant Emil S. Peters, a veteran of action in Nicaragua, had, during the first attack, reported to the central ordnance tent to lend a hand in manning a gun. By the time he arrived there, however, there were none left to man. Enlisting the aid of Private William G. Turner, VMSB's squadron clerk, Peters ran over to the ex- Lexington machine that still bore her USN markings, 2-B-6, pulled the after canopy forward, and clambered in the after cockpit, stepping hard on the foot pedal to unship the free.

Turner, having obtained a supply of belted ammunition, took his place on the wing as Peter's assistant. Elsewhere, nursing his painfully wounded finger and leg, Lieutenant Colonel Larkin ordered extra guards posted on the perimeter of the filed and on the various roads leading into the base.

Men not engaged in active defense went to work fighting the many fires. Drivers parked what trucks and automobiles had remained intact on the runways to prevent any possible landings by airborne troops.

Although hardly transforming Ewa into a fortress, the Marines ensured that they would be ready for any future attack. At about , enemy planes again made their appearance in the sky over Ewa, but this time, Marines stood or crouched ready and waiting for what proved to be Lieutenant Commander Takahashi's dive bombing unit from Shokaku, returning from its attacks on the naval air station at Pearl Harbor and the Army's Hickam Field, roaring in from just above the treetops.

Initially, their targets appeared to be the planes, but, seeing that most had already been destroyed, the enemy pilots turned to strafing buildings and people in a "heavy and prolonged" assault. Better prepared than they had been when Lieutenant Commander Itaya's Zeroes had opened the battle, Ewa's Marines met Takahashi's Vals with heavy fire from rifles, Thompson submachine guns,.

In retaliation, after completing their strafing runs, the Japanese pilots pulled up in steep wing-overs, allowing their rear seat gunners to take advantage of the favorable deflection angle to spray the defenders with 7.

Marine observers later recounted that Shokaku's planes also dropped light bombs, perhaps of the kilogram variety, as they counted five small craters on the filed after the attack.

In response to the second onslaught, as they had in the first, all available Marines threw themselves into the desperate defense of their base. The additional strafing attacks started numerous fires within the camp area, adding new columns of dense smoke to those still rising from the planes on the parking apron. Unfortunately, the ground fire seemed far more brave than accurate, because all of Shokaku's dive bombers repeatedly zoomed skyward, seemingly unhurt. Even taking into account possible damage sustained during attacks over Ford Island and Hickam, only four of Takahashi's planes sustained any damage over Oahu before they retired.