Warbird Information Exchange

Mrs. Mudge and I were at a small gathering last nite and I was asked why the "Zero" was called a "Zero". My reply was, (with apologies to Tevya) "You ask me. I'll tell you. I DON'T KNOW."

Any of youse troops want to educate me?

Mudge the curious

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Land of the free because of the brave

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It was officially called the "Type 0 Carrier Fighter" because it was first flown in the 2600th Showa year in Japan (similarly, the Val was the Type 99 Dive Bomber, as it came out a year earlier.)

SN

I 'preciates it.

Mudge the educable

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Land of the free because of the brave

I've read that Japanese pilots, many of whom spoke english, adopted the 'Zero" or "Zero-sen" moniker.
Not unlike the MiG "Fulcrum"

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Lest Hero-worship raise it's head and cloud our vision, remember that World War II was fought and won by the same sort of twenty-something punks we wouldn't let our daughters date.

To Mudge the enlightened
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The A6M was usually referred to by the Allies as the "Zero", from the 'Navy Type 0 Carrier Fighter' designation.

The Name

The A6M is universally known as the Zero from its Japanese Navy type designation, Type 0 Carrier Fighter (Rei shiki Kanjō sentōki, 零式艦上戦闘機), taken from the last digit of the Imperial year 2600 (1940), when it entered service. In Japan it was unofficially referred to as both Rei-sen and Zero-sen; Japanese pilots most commonly called it, Zero-se

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Kind Regards,
Gary Lewis
J.A.F.O.

Also remember that the "official" US code name for the A6M was the "ZEKE" and not the Zero and those terms seem to be both in use during the war.
Tom Bowers

And a further bit of trivia: the A6M3 Zero variant with clipped wingips was initially thought to be a new aircraft when first reported, so it was given a new code name: "Hap," to honor Hap Arnold. Hap didn't consider it an much of an honor, so the name was quickly changed to "Hamp."

SN

And 'Hap', 'Hamp' and 'Zeke', all sound(ed) stranger to non-North American ears than 'Zero', which may be one reason that Zero stuck better than the official reporting name/s, certainly in British Commonwealth use.

Regards,

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James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

Mudge - here is some background on the various Japanese aircraft designation systems that I wrote for our museum docent manual back in 1997. I hope it helps in addition to the information already supplied by others.
http://rwebs.net/avhistory/acdesig/japanese.htm
Randy

During the war just about all combat reports were Japanese "Zeros" even if they were other models. Remember combat and distances were involved. Same as all bombers at some point were "Betty" bombers... The first Ki-61's were reported as Me-109's... we;; that's what they looked like and there was no promo material provided by the Kawasaki for the Allies!

I was under the impression that Japanese floatplanes were given "hillbilly" names (from memory, this was the term used in the source I read this in, can't recall which one but likely Francillon's tome), and would "Zeke" not be considered such? I assume "Rufe" is some sort of shortening of "Rufus"? Pete sounds pretty normal to me though....


greg v.

From Randy's linked document above:

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James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

I stand corrected, thanks!

greg v.

Don't think you were wrong, just Randy's text had the more precise answer. Couldn't remember the correct story myself, either.

So thanks to Randy!

Regards,

_________________
James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com