On December 7th, 1941, Japanese pilot Shigenori Nishikaichi was flying his Mitsubishi Zero over the Pacific Ocean.
The 22-year-old was escorting the bomber jets of the second wave of attack on Pearl Harbor, which targeted the Army airbase of Bellows Field.
On their way back to the aircraft carrier, the Japanese group was met by a squadron of American P-36 Hawks. Although the Mitsubishi Zeros were a far superior aircraft, they no longer had the element of surprise on their side.
Nishikaichi was hit immediately after taking down a Hawk. The fuel tank of the aircraft started leaking profoundly through a bullet hole. The carrier was over 200 miles away, and the plane wasn’t going to make it. Nishikaichi had to perform an emergency landing on whichever island was closest to him.
The Japanese fighter pilot thought he had crash-landed on a deserted Hawaiian island, but he was wrong. He was about to incite a violent rebellion… one which has remained in relative obscurity until recently. It was a frightening incident of an enemy soldier running amok on American soil and an event that would contribute to the eventual incarceration of thousands of Japanese-Americans living in the United States...
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Dark Docs brings you cinematic short military history documentaries featuring the greatest battles and most heroic stories of modern warfare, covering World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, and special forces operations in between.
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