Was this a true story?

[Willi Von Klugerman]

A teacher said that during WW2 in Alaska,a Japanese and a US pilot got both of them shot down and crashed within a mile from each other.Then both pilots teamed up in order to survive.Was this true?

[Chock]

Sounds to me like the plot of the 1968 John Boorman movie, 'Hell in the Pacific', which starred Lee Marvin as a US Marines pilot and Toshiro Mifune as a Japanese Navy Captain, both of whom end up marooned on an island in the Pacific during WW2. If you've never seen it, it is worth seeking out, as it is a remarkable movie, particularly since Mifune was in the Imperial Japanese Air Force in WW2, and Marvin was a Marine in WW2, so there is a great deal of authenticity in there. Although if you do seek that movie out, it is worth noting that the original version has a better ending (won't spoil it for you), but it was deemed 'too depressing' by the film's distributors and had a less unhappy and more ambiguous ending tacked onto it in later editions.

You may possibly have seen the science fiction remake of Hell in the Pacific (also very good), which is a movie called 'Enemy Mine', directed by Wolfgang Peterson, in which Dennis Quaid is a space pilot who collides with an alien craft during a dogfight in the atmosphere of a hostile planet, the collision forcing both he and the alien pilot (Louis Gosset Jnr) down onto the planet, where they team up to survive. Like the original Hell in the Pacific, Enemy Mine is highly regarded but perhaps not as well known as it should be, since both movies are an interesting study of cultural differences between enemies.

Both of those movies, and more recent films such as Castaway with Tom Hanks, are essentially retellings of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe of course, but since Robinson Crusoe is a fictionalised version of the true story of Alexander Selkirk, you never know.

The original story you mention may have some truth in it, although I've not personally heard of it. The Japanese did attempt to invade the Aleutian Islands (and actually occupied some of them for a short while), so there certainly would have been the opportunity for it to happen. The attack was never in great force though, being mainly a diversion to try and draw US forces away from the assault on Midway Island. Some Japanese planes were shot down in that area, including one of the first Mitsubishi A6M 'Zeroes' that the US were able to get their hands on, however, in that case the pilot was killed. That was Japanese pilot Petty Officer Koga, who was attacking Dutch Harbour in the Aleutians when his fuel lines were hit. He attempted to land in the marshes on Akutan Island, but his A6M2 overturned on landing and broke his neck, but five weeks later he and his reasonably intact A6M2 were found; it was shipped back to a US base, repaired and test flown by the Americans.

That event would certainly indicate the possibility of people being shot down in remote places in Alaska during WW2, so I too would be interested to know if there was any truth in the story you mention.

Al

[Barrett]

There was so little air combat in the Aleutians that I severely doubt the story's true. The weather was a vastly greater problem. So was the environment. So was the landscape. So was the cold. And the rain. And the snow. And the low visibility amid mountains. And...well, you get the idea.