Jiro Horikoshi - Wikipedia

Thank you, my friend Maj Marty Hogan for making us aware that June 22 is the anniversary of the birth of Japanese chief engineer Jiro Horikoshi who designed many Japanese fighter airplanes prior to WWII and after the war started including the Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter.

WWII Aircraft of Japan Documentary History Channel
History Channel Thanks for watching! Comment anything as ud like! I've been looking everywhere to find good documentaries on Japanese weapons of WWII, .
Shinano was an aircraft carrier built by the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during World War II. Initially laid down as the third of the Yamato-class battleships, .
The Mitsubishi A6M Zero was a long-range fighter aircraft, manufactured by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and operated by the Imperial Japanese Navy from 1940 .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc94vwCCNrk

Images:
1. Mitsubishi A6M 'Zero'.
2. Mitsubishi A5M 'Claude'.
3. Dr. Jiro Horikoshi (center) and members of the A6M1 design team, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (July, 1937).
4. Jiro Horikoshi was the chief engineer of many Japanese fighter designs of World War II, including the Mitsubishi A6M "Zero" fighter. Seen here in a 1962 photograph.

Background from thevintagenews.com/2017/05/22/dr-jiro-horikoshi-the-engineer-behind-the-mitsubishi-a6m-zero-fighter-in-wwii/
"Dr. Jiro Horikoshi: The engineer behind the Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter in WWII.
Born near Fujioka, Japan, in 1903, Jiro Horikoshi graduated from the Aviation Laboratory (Kōkū Kenkyūjo), which had recently opened in the Engineering Department of the University of Tokyo.

The young engineer started his career at Mitsubishi Internal Combustion Engine Company Limited, which later became Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Nagoya Aircraft Manufacturing Plant.
Horikoshi’s first work at Mitsubishi International was on an experimental aircraft, the Mitsubishi 1MF10, which never passed the prototype stage during flying tests. Horikoshi studied previous designs, leading him to create a more improved and successful model, the Mitsubishi A5M (which became known as “Claude” to Allied forces in WWII). This model entered mass production in 1936.
In 1937, Horikoshi’s team was asked to design a plane called Prototype 12. The model was finished and accepted by the Imperial Japanese Navy in 1940. Since it was the year 2600 in the Imperial calendar, pilots referred to the fighter as the “Rei-sen,” which means “zero fighter.” It was named the A6M Zero, nicknamed “Zero” or “Model 00.” Its Allied codename was “Zeke, ” but “Zero” was used more commonly. The Mitsubishi A6M Zero was a long-range fighter aircraft operated from 1940 to 1945 by the Imperial Japanese Navy.
Between 1937 and 1940, Horikoshi and his team designed many fighters for Mitsubishi. Among these models were the A6M Zero’s successor, the Mitsubishi A7M Reppu (Strong Gale) and the single-engined land-based fighter aircraft, the Mitsubishi J2M Raiden (Thunderbolt), which was used in WWII by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service and nicknamed “Jack” by the Allies.
Although Mitsubishi had close ties to the Japanese military, Horikoshi was strongly opposed to WWII. He saw it as a futile war and wrote about it in his diary, which was published in 1956:

“When we awoke on the morning of Dec. 8, 1941, we found ourselves — without any foreknowledge — to be embroiled in war … Since then, the majority of us who had truly understood the awesome industrial strength of the United States never really believed that Japan would win this war. We were convinced that surely our government had in mind some diplomatic measures which would bring the conflict to a halt before the situation became catastrophic for Japan. But now, bereft of any strong government move to seek a diplomatic way out, we are being driven to doom. Japan is being destroyed. I cannot do [anything] other but to blame the military hierarchy and the blind politicians in power for dragging Japan into this hellish cauldron of defeat.” – Okumiya, Masatake; Horikoshi, Jiro (1956). “Zero! The Story of Japan’s Air War in the Pacific”. New York: EP Dutton & Co.

On Dec. 7, 1944, there was a powerful earthquake in the region of Tokai which forced Mitsubishi to halt the production of aircraft at its plant in Ohimachi, Nagoya. Just a week later, there was an air raid made on the Mitsubishi Engine Works by B-29s in Daiko-Cho, Nagoya. At the time, Horikoshi was at a conference with Imperial Navy officers in Tokyo, discussing the new version of the “Reppu” fighter.

When he got back to Nagoya, just a few days after the raid, there was another one on the Mitsubishi factories which forced the company to evacuate all the engineers and machinery to the suburbs of eastern Nagoya. Horikoshi and the Engineering Department were settled in a school building. At the end of December, Hirokoshi fell ill with pleurisy due to overworking and exhaustion. He remained sick in bed until the beginning of April 1945.

While in bed, Hirokoshi wrote detailed records of the terrors of the air raids in Nagoya and Tokyo. The devastating “Operation Meetinghouse” Tokyo incendiary raid of March 9–10 was also included in his records. The following day there was a massive air raid on Nagoya during which most of the wooden city was destroyed. The engineer sent his family away to his home village, only his wife remaining with him.

Although he was greatly weakened after the three months he spent ill in bed, Horikoshi returned to work in May. He was assigned to the No. 1 Works of the company, at Matsumoto in Nagano Prefecture.
When the war ended, Horikoshi was part of the team that designed the YS-11, a turboprop airliner built by a Japanese consortium called the Nihon Aircraft Manufacturing Corporation. After the plane was finished, Horikoshi left Mitsubishi and dedicated his time to teaching. He taught in various educational and research institutions including the Institute of Space and Aeronautics at the University of Tokyo, where he remained from 1963 until 1965. He was also a professor in the Faculty of Engineering at Nihon University.
In 1956, he collaborated on the book “Zero: The Story of Japan’s Air War in the Pacific,” written by Okumiya Masatake, a general in the JASDF who had led the Zero fighter squadrons during the war. By the early 1970s, Horikoshi was in semi-retirement and served as an advisor to the Society of Japanese Aircraft Constructors. Even at this time, he continued receiving letters about aircraft from enthusiasts all over the world.

In 1970, Hirokoshi published his memoir about the development of the “Zero.” The book was translated by the University of Washington Press as “Eagles of Mitsubishi: The Story of the Zero Fighter” in 1981. In 1973, he was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Third Class, for his achievements.

Horikoshi died at the age of 78 of pneumonia. He passed away in a hospital in Tokyo in 1982."

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Interesting biography share

Excellent aerospace engineer; he was behind the planes that came in as suicide bombers