谷水竹雄

War record

Graduated from the 3rd Hei-class flight training course in 1941.11 and, as a wartime-trained pilot, was posted to the 6th Naval Air Group in 1942.4 → June aboard the carrier Kasuga Maru; 1943.2 transferred to Shokaku; November moved up to the Rabaul base (his first combat was the interception of the 2nd, in which he shot down 2 P-38s) → for four months, until he moved to the Tainan Naval Air Group in 1944.3, he was active in daily interceptions (at Tainan he served as an instructor while also intercepting B-24s and taking part in the air defence fighting of the air battle off Taiwan) → in November, escorting a convoy off Amoy, he was surprised by P-51s, hit and set on fire; he took to his parachute and came down in the water, and was hospitalised with burns → returned to Japan at the end of 1944 and belonged to the 203rd Naval Air Group until the end of the war, taking part in the air defence of Kyushu and the Okinawa operation; he was at the Usa base when the war ended