Japanese Engineers Capture a Corsair F4U — And Admit They've Never Seen Anything Like It

Video from the channel Histoires De Guerre TV about Vought F4U Corsair, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 28:55. Language: French. Video type: Documentary.

A documentary reconstructing the technical examination of a US Vought F4U Corsair that ditched off Japan in early 1945 and was recovered by Japanese patrol boats. The aircraft was moved to the Yokosuka Naval Air Technical Arsenal, where engineers measured and dismantled the fighter to study its structure, armament and engine. The narrative alternates that examination with the aircraft's operational history.

The Corsair originated from a 1938 US Navy specification calling for over 650 km/h in level flight, a range of 1,600 km, heavy armament and bomb-carrying capacity. Rex Beisel's team at Chance Vought built the aircraft around the Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp, an 18-cylinder radial of about 2,000 hp, with a 4.06 m propeller; the inverted gull wing allowed a short landing gear with enough clearance for the propeller. The XF4U-1 prototype flew in May 1940 with Lyman Bullard Jr. at the controls and, on 1 October 1940, reached 650 km/h ground speed with a tailwind. The Marines' VMF-124 squadron arrived at Henderson Field, Guadalcanal, on 12 February 1943; two days later it suffered the so-called "St Valentine's Day Massacre," before pilots adopted the dive-and-climb tactic. Kenneth Walsh became the first Corsair ace on 13 May 1943.

The Yokosuka examination recorded a wingspan of 12.49 m and a length of 10.16 m, fabric-covered wing and control surfaces, a high-quality forged main spar, six .50-caliber Browning machine guns with 2,350 rounds, 68 kg of armor, 3.8 cm bulletproof glass and self-sealing fuel tanks. The documentary highlights the gap in manufacturing precision compared to Japanese industry in 1945. By the end of the war the Japanese held at least two captured Corsairs, and occupation forces found their reports at Yokosuka in September 1945. The Corsair achieved an official kill ratio of 11 to 1: it shot down 2,140 Japanese aircraft and lost 189 to enemy action. It later fought in Korea, served with France into the 1960s, and scored its final victories on 17 July 1969 in the Football War, when Honduran captain Fernando Soto, flying an F4U-5, shot down three Salvadoran aircraft, two of them FG-1Ds.