Summary The Zero, a Japanese WWII fighter, was an IJN asset, often confused with the IJAAS's "Oscar." During Pearl Harbor, Zeros shot down 8 American military planes and 3 American civilian planes, killed civilian firefighters, and exhibited deadly weaponry. Nine Zeros were lost in the Pearl Harbor attack, destroyed by US forces, with some remnants preserved in museums and private collections.
The Mitsubishi A6M Zero (Allied reporting name "Zeke") was Imperial Japan's most famous and iconic fighter plane of the Second World War. As I noted in a recent previous Simple flying article, "Zero" practically became a generic label for WWII Japanese fighter planes in general, even though the actual Zero was strictly an Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; 大日本帝国海軍/ Dai-Nippon Teikoku Kaigun ) asset as opposed to the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service (IJAAS; 大日本帝國陸軍航空部隊/ Dainippon Teikoku Rikugun Kōkūbutai ). Japan's post-WWII naval and air forces are known as the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ( JMSDF ; 海上自衛隊/ Kaijō Jieitai ) and Japan Air Self-Defense Force ( JASDF ; 航空自衛隊, Kōkū Jieitai ) respectively.
The IJAAF's "Oscar" was ofttimes mistaken for the Imperial Japanese Navy's Zero. But the Oscar was a distinctive fighter plane in its own right. The Zero was first "blooded" in combat in the skies over Nationalist China in September 1940, but it was during the " Day of Infamy ," i.
e. the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7,.