山本亨

Akira Yamamoto (山本 旭, Yamamoto Akira) (1913 – 24 November 1944) was an officer and ace fighter pilot in the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific theater of World War II. In aerial combat over China, the Pacific, and Japan, he was officially credited with destroying 13 enemy aircraft. Flying an A6M2 Zero fighter from the aircraft carrier Kaga during the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Yamamoto claimed to have destroyed a civilian sight-seeing aircraft over Oahu which had happened into the path of the Japanese first strike wave. In June 1942, during the Battle of Midway, Kaga was fatally damaged by enemy action while Yamamoto was participating in the fleet's combat air patrol. Yamamoto landed his fighter on Hiryū and subsequently joined that carrier's successful retaliatory strike on the United States Navy carrier Yorktown. Yamamoto clai...