Naoshi Kanno ( ja, 菅野直, 13 October 1921 – 1 August 1945) was a Japanese

fighter ace A flying ace, fighter ace or air ace is a military aviator credited with shooting down five or more enemy aircraft during aerial combat. The exact number of aerial victories required to officially qualify as an ace is varied, but is usually co ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. He is credited with 25 confirmed kills.

Life and career

Born on October 13, 1921, as the second son of a police chief, in Ryuguchi (now near

Pyongyang Pyongyang (, , ) is the capital and largest city of North Korea, where it is known as the "Capital of the Revolution". Pyongyang is located on the Taedong River about upstream from its mouth on the Yellow Sea. According to the 2008 populatio ...

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...

). He grew up in Edano Village, Igu County,

Miyagi Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. Miyagi Prefecture has a population of 2,305,596 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of . Miyagi Prefecture borders Iwate Prefecture to the north, Akita Prefecture to the nort ...

(present-day Kakuda City), and his parents were also from this neighborhood. He loved his eldest brother, Iwao, who was an honor student, and did not quarrel with his brothers. In place of his strict mother, he adored his older sister Kahoru, who was seven years older than him, and he sometimes slept with her until the first year of junior high school (under the old system of junior high school). Although he was obedient to his brother and sister, he was a cheerful and quarreling general outside and had a bullish side toward fighting enemies when his brother was bullied. When he was seven or eight years old, he wrestled with a local dog and killed it with a knife. However, such a bully, Kanno, continued studying until late at night and always had the top grade in the class, so people around him wondered when and where that bully was studying. He entered Kakuda Junior High School with the best grades. The junior students at that time said, "We did something weird and we couldn't imagine it." We couldn't lose if we had a fight, and maybe we weren't very good at morals or behavior, but the popularity was huge." In addition, a classmate said, "Kanno was rather a nampa" (literary boy)." Kanno was a literary boy in junior high school who was devoted to Takuboku Ishikawa, liked

tanka is a genre of classical Japanese poetry and one of the major genres of Japanese literature. Etymology Originally, in the time of the ''Man'yōshū'' (latter half of the eighth century AD), the term ''tanka'' was used to distinguish "short poem ...

, and formed a literary circle with his classmates. The tanka of Kanno posted in the literary section of the Kahoku Shimpo at that time was selected. When he was in the 4th year of junior high school, he was studying for university entrance exams, but for financial reasons, he said, "Your brother should go to college. I will be a soldier." Kanno enrolled in the

Japanese Navy Academy The was a school established to train line officers for the Imperial Japanese Navy. It was originally located in Nagasaki, Nagasaki, Nagasaki, moved to Yokohama in 1866, and was relocated to Tsukiji, Tokyo in 1869. It moved to Etajima, Hiroshima, E ...

in December 1938, graduating in February 1943 in the 70th class. Upon completion of flight school, he was assigned to the front lines in April 1943, joining the

343rd Naval Air Group The was an aircraft and airbase garrison unit of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during the Pacific campaign of World War II. Created in late 1944 due to the desperate situation of Japan in the closing stages of the war, the 343rd was composed ...

, quickly becoming a squadron commander ( ''buntai'' leader) and by July 1944, leading (as the '' hikotai'' leader) the 306th Squadron of the . He gained the reputation as a rebellious but skillful fighter pilot. Initially based in

Micronesia Micronesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, consisting of about 2,000 small islands in the western Pacific Ocean. It has a close shared cultural history with three other island regions: the Philippines to the west, Polynesia to the east, and ...

, his unit fought many engagements over the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

and the Yap island. On 27 October 1944 he claimed to have shot down 12

Grumman F6F The Grumman F6F Hellcat is an American carrier-based fighter aircraft of World War II. Designed to replace the earlier F4F Wildcat and to counter the Japanese Mitsubishi A6M Zero, it was the United States Navy's dominant fighter in the second ha ...

fighter planes. He made requests to transfer to a

kamikaze , officially , were a part of the Japanese Special Attack Units of military aviators who flew suicide attacks for the Empire of Japan against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II, intending to d ...

unit, but those were denied as he was considered too valuable a pilot to sacrifice. In December 1944 he became the squadron commander of the 301st Squadron of the

343rd Air Group The was an aircraft and airbase garrison unit of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during the Pacific campaign of World War II. Created in late 1944 due to the desperate situation of Japan in the closing stages of the war, the 343rd was composed ...

. His unit moved back to the

Kyushu is the third-largest island of Japan's five main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands ( i.e. excluding Okinawa). In the past, it has been known as , and . The historical regional name referred to Kyushu and its surroun ...

in the Japanese home islands toward the end of the war.

Disappearance and aftermath

His final mission took place on 1 August 1945, two weeks before the end of the war, when he took off to intercept a group of

B-24 The Consolidated B-24 Liberator is an American heavy bomber, designed by Consolidated Aircraft of San Diego, California. It was known within the company as the Model 32, and some initial production aircraft were laid down as export models des ...

bombers escorted by

P-51 Mustang The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang is an American long-range, single-seat fighter and fighter-bomber used during World War II and the Korean War, among other conflicts. The Mustang was designed in April 1940 by a team headed by James ...

fighters off the island of

Yakushima , native_name_link = , image_caption = Landsat image of Yakushima , image_size = , nickname = , location = East China Sea , coordinates = , map = Japan#Japan Kagoshima Prefecture , map_relief ...

south of

. He sustained damage when a barrel of his gun exploded, and went missing in action shortly afterwards, presumed dead. His remains were never found. He was posthumously promoted two ranks to Commander in the following month.

In fiction

Kanno is one of the protagonists of the '' Drifters'' manga and anime, where he was voiced by

Tatsuhisa Suzuki is a Japanese voice actor and singer from Ichikawa, Chiba. He is affiliated with I'm Enterprise and Lantis. He is the former lead vocalist of Oldcodex, in which he performed under his stage name Ta_2. Biography ''Shūkan Bunshun'' reported tha ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kannno, Naoshi 1921 births 1940s missing person cases 1945 deaths Aerial disappearances of military personnel in action Japanese military personnel killed in World War II Japanese naval aviators Japanese World War II flying aces Missing in action of World War II Missing person cases in Japan People from Miyagi Prefecture People lost at sea

Life and career

Disappearance and aftermath

In fiction

See also

References

External links