Hi.

I just started reading Japanese Army Air Force Fighter Units And Their Aces by Hata, Izawa and Shores. At page 16, top left, a photo of 24th Sentai leaders shows all them wearing what seems a parachute harness and at page 21, bottom, Sgt. Kuroki also has a similar harness; at his left side an handle is even visible, that could be to open it. Both photographs have been taken at time of Nomonhan "incident" (1939). Same book repeatedly tells of pilots that "baled" out (I think it means "bailed" out) and at page 15 explicitly wrote about a pilot "which took to his parachute".

GB

Thanks. It looks the matter is still controversial, though. I find only Sakai's testimony to support japanese pilots refusing to use parachute. Seem sort of boast to me (or late attempt to raise honor of the losers). According to war reports and photographical evidence, I think they carried and used parachute.

But not very often... And I don't think you can broadbrush it as such.

Broadbrush? I guess you won't mean I can't paint something . Of course, in reality I can imagine there were a lot of different "nuances" about the two possible choices: today, for instance, I read about the famous Tateo Kato who, put out of combat, voluntarily dived into sea as he had instructed to do to his pupils in such circumstances(!). When I settled the question above, I was thinking to IL-2 option, which is only "yes" or "not"; so I thought the line UseParachutes should be added to DGen options as well as campaign makers as Poltava did well setting use of parachute just from beginning to represent main behaviour of japanese pilots.

Yes GB that is somewhat of an expression I use that means substantial or nearly all.. What I mean in simple terms is that substantially speaking I believe that the Japanese pilots did not use the parachute. It appears to me that sometimes they used one but more often NOT. I would expect that one should understand the mentality of the Japanese soldier or airman during the war and that these things would have gone against the grain of their fighting spirit. That was no boast.

In short, I think Sakai's account conveys the best notion and seems the most plausible given what we know about the Japanese fighting mentality at the time.

There's something not being mentioned here, and that is the fact that there was a Japanese Army Air Force, and a Naval air arm. These two groups did not operate in the same way.
It was the naval pilots who got the reputation for not bailing out of their airplanes. I've read of numerous reports from U.S. pilots, telling of Hayabusa flyers, or other Army types, jumping fromn their planes. The vast majority of the reports about Zero kills nearly always involved the pilot going down with his airplane.
In one fascinating story involving a kill against a Zeke, The American burned the Japanese airplane. The pilot climbed out onto the wing to escape the fire, but did not jump. The U.S. pilot flew alongside the enemy aircraft and the two pilots looked right into each others eyes. The Japanese flyer rode his burning plane all the way down until it crashed into the water.

So maybe we should have a switch in the game to turn off bailouts for the Japanese naval campaigns only..

IMHO, carrying a parachute was up to the pilots. There's no rule against japanese (navy) pilots to carry one. Adding a "no parachute" or "no bailout" switch only makes the sim unrealistic. If you want to simulate japanese pilots mentality and honor, just don't press that bail out button.

Interesting point that about different mentality between japan army and navy. Indeed, I was referring to JAAF, so this makes sense. Why, otherwise, to wear parachute harness, proudly shown even in photographs, if not to use it in case? About game, that formidable tool which is FMB allows campaign makers to set even the single flight using or not parachute, according to their historical research, whilst player, after having set the most suitable setting in conf.ini (adding or not the line UseParachutes), can still detail in FMB the single flight setting, if he want.