''Recognition of the Japanese Zero Fighter'' (also known as ''Jap Zero'') is a 1943 educational dramatic short produced by the

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

during

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 ...

. The film's purpose was to instruct pilots in the

Pacific theater The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

about recognizing hostile planes at long distances and avoid " friendly fire" incidents.

Plot

Most of the film is taken up with a short play in which a young pilot, portrayed by

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

, is ordered on reconnaissance missions of the Pacific. He encounters another plane and cannot tell if it is friendly or not. This plot is interspersed with animated segments illustrating the physical characteristics of the Japanese

Zero 0 (zero) is a number representing an empty quantity. In place-value notation Positional notation (or place-value notation, or positional numeral system) usually denotes the extension to any base of the Hindu–Arabic numeral system (or ...

and how it can be distinguished from an

American plane ''Platanus occidentalis'', also known as American sycamore, American planetree, western plane, occidental plane, buttonwood, and water beech, is a species of ''Platanus'' native to the eastern and central United States, the mountains of northeas ...

Influence

Scenes from ''Jap Zero'' appear in ''

If You Love This Planet ''If You Love This Planet'' is a 1982 short documentary film recording a lecture given to SUNY Plattsburgh students by physician and anti-nuclear activist Dr. Helen Caldicott about the dangers posed by nuclear weapons. The movie was directed by Te ...

'', a 1982 documentary short about the dangers of nuclear weapons.

References

External links

* * 1943 films American World War II propaganda shorts Films directed by Bernard Vorhaus American black-and-white films American aviation films First Motion Picture Unit films Articles containing video clips American war drama films 1940s war films 1943 drama films Japan in non-Japanese culture 1940s American films {{WWII-film-stub