The fairies are rather rude, aren't they?

Steak said:

The fairies are rather rude, aren't they?

The guy is Akamatsu Sadaaki... My grandfather apparently met this guy once. As the story goes, my grandfather bought a bunch of beers to carry back to a reunion when he got scammed out of the entire load by Akamatsu. By the time he realized that Akamatsu wasn't a part of the reunion for Imperial Army officers, it had been 30 minutes. So he went out to hunt the guy down. Turns out there was another party close by which was a reunion for Imperial Navy officers.

Didn't hear what happen in the end. But Akamatsu was a serious drunkard and had some serious trouble making antics.

Nagumo said:

My grandfather apparently met this guy once. As the story goes, my grandfather bought a bunch of beers to carry back to a reunion when he got scammed out of the entire load by Akamatsu.

Wow, there's nothing quite like an old badass.

Let me avail you with Akamatsu Sadaaki's greatest overclaim.

The Japanese Story

“Air-Sergeant Satoru Anabuki, upon receipt of information at 1215 o'clock on October 8th, 1943, that enemy planes had appeared in the skies over Bassien, took off to intercept the enemy raiders as plane No. 4 of the Tomomune Squadron of the Nitta air unit in Rangoon.

While Air-Sergeant Anabuki was nursing his plane upward in a climb and trailing somewhat behind the main body of his unit due to engine trouble, he sighted the enemy. It was a formation of 11 B-24s escorted by two P-38s. The Air-Sergeant immediately decided to crush the raiders single handedly.

He plunged his plane into the enemy formation and surprise-attacked the near most P-38. He knocked it out with one stroke from the upper rear.

Continuing his attack on the enemy formation with repeated rushes, the Air-Sergeant brought down two B-24s and another P-38.

Despite a wound received in the palm of his left hand, he continued his lone battle. Upon seeing that his ammunition was exhausted, he deliberately swooped down on one of the B-24s, clipped its tail and sent it hurtling to destruction.

In the air duels, he single-handedly accounted for a total of three B-24s and two P-38s. His plane was damaged compelling him to make a forced landing, after which, with calmness and composure, he succeeded in returning to his base alive on October 10th."

The Allied Story

On October 8th, 1943, Heavy Bombers attacked Lashio and Gia Lam airdrome (near Hanoi). Medium bombers attacked Sagaing, Akyab, Hsipaw, and Maymyo. All our aircraft and crews returned. No attacks were made against Rangoon.

To be fair, everyone overclaimed victories in WWII. It was normal for a unit to say they shot down 2-3 times enemies than they actually did. And all the major nations had at least one incident where they claimed to have shot down more aircraft than the entire enemy had available on that front.

From the wikipedia page:
"Many of [Sadaaki's] air-victories were obtained while drunk...."

*sigh*