A Japanese artist's conception of the action over the Bay
of Bengal, 22 May 1942, when Sergeant McLuckie of 60 Squadron shot down
Lt. Col. Kato Tateo, commander of the 64th Sentai and the most famous
of all Japanese army pilots. McLuckie earlier winged two other Hayabusas
and forced them to retire to Burma. After Kato spiraled into the sea,
the remaining two Japanese fighter pilots gave up the chase and headed
for home.
Score: McLuckie 3 | 64th Sentai 0.
I often think of Sgt. McLuckie's clean sweep when
aviation buffs scoff at the notion of rear-facing, rifle-caliber, flexible
guns on a bomber or scout plane, as compared to the more and usually
heavier fixed guns on the attacking fighters. Real life is generally
very different than a scenario on a computer screen!
The painting is from the dustcover of Tsubasa no kessen [Desperate
Winged Combat] by Hinoki Yohei, published
by Kojun-sha in 1984. Hinoki-san was a pilot in the 64th Sentai.
Note that the left-hand panel is the book's front cover.
New: I was delighted recently to
hear from Flight Sergeant McLuckie's son Keith, who emails:
A friend pointed me to the account of my father's
action against the Japanese and particularly Kato, on your site. It is
pretty much as my father described it to me some 30 years ago (He died in
1991) and a good deal better researched than another account I read.
There are a couple of points I'd like to make
and one that was reinforced to me by Huggard when I went to see him after
my father's death (my father never wanted to see his old compatriots
and spoke about the war only a couple of times to me). There was little
luck involved in my father's shooting it was hard work and talent, he
practised remorselessly - with a shotgun and he was an excellent shot
having helped feed his highland family with the help of a shotgun from
an early age - since he believed that the notion of "lead" which is basic
to successful shotgun shooting was a skill best practised often and one
essential to hitting a moving target, whether firing a shotgun of machine
gun. Estimation of distance to target was also important to him as well
and I remember his distance judgement to be pretty good - he used to
make me pace distant objects when I was a kid after saying how far away
they were!
I know our surname lends itself to pun about
luck that most writers cannot resist but such statements negate the truth.
Huggard told me that dad used to shoot every day on the aerodrome with
his shotgun, mostly at the birds there about, in order to practise this
skill - a source of amusement to his fellow flyers until this engagement!
- and he rarely missed and was annoyed with himself if given the
opportunity he missed a "left and right" (meaning one bird with the left
barrel and one with the right using a double barrelled shotgun).
My father personally supervised the service
and loading of his twin .303 browning (not single Vickers as is reported
in some accounts) - Huggard suggested that this too was the cause of some
light ribbing - but the ribbing stopped after the action over the Bay of
Bengal - he was a cautious man by nature and unwilling to rely on others
if he could help it - what the armourers made of this I don't know. He
also said something about checking the sights on the Brownings....
In his description of the action my dad said
he shot at and hit 2 of the flight of five Hayabusas and they turned back
and the other three hung back - the Blenheim was "on the sea" as Huggard
put it at this point (Huggard said he was "low enough to clip the waves
and scared to death he'd ditch into the sea, but what choice did we have?")
with the Hayabusas following but unable to get their guns to bear. My
father told me that he had altered the
lowest stop point of the machine guns - in effect he could have shot off
the top of his own tale - but he said he did this to give him more options
either side of the tail in getting his guns to bear....
My dad said they had been told that the Japanese
pilots expected the Brownings to jam/misfeed as apparently they were prone
to do (I don't know if this was true or not) so he pretended that his pair
had indeed done this by going through the motions to clear a jam, being
fully aware that the Japanese pilots could see this.... It was then Kato
who came in slightly from the side and rear almost level and turning, dad
said he just started firing at the point in space where Kato was committed
to fly through and he saw the wing, engine canopy and cockpit hit by his
fire - it seemed likely from this account that Kato was dead before he
hit the water (I believe it was this, strangely given the circumstances,
sight of death that made my dad reluctant to speak about the action for
the rest of his life) - it also seems unlikely that Kato had sufficient
altitude to turn and dive into the water because both planes were very
low and already close to the water. My dad wasn't clear what had happened,
he said he saw the splash and knew the guy had gone down, because he was
worried about the other two Hayabusas, however shortly after that the other
two turned and left for their base.
It's the first time I've seen the "illustration"
of the action, but it is clear there is much artistic licence in use,
the action was over the sea not the land and at a lower altitude than
depicted - the Hayabusa pilot would be an idiot to position himself as
shown in the picture and whatever else they were the Japanese pilots were
not idiots.
I'm not sure your title for the illustration's
all that accurate - my dad did, after all, take out 60% of the fighter
force single handed with a pair of Brownings - was that luck? Personally
I don't believe in luck maybe I inherit that! Keith McLuckie
