serviceyears death_place death_date birth_place allegiance awards battles birth_date nickname rank image article_title name
1934-1945 masuda , japan 20 may 1955 karafuto , japan -lrb- now sakhalin , russia -rrb- japan order of the golden kite - 5th class second sino-japanese war world war ii 15 june 1916 zero fighter ace kotetsu `` tiger tetsu '' lieutenant junior grade tetsuzo iwamoto.jpg tetsuzō iwamoto
 tetsuzo iwamoto
tetsuzō iwamoto

lieutenant junior grade was one of the top scoring aces among imperial japanese navy air force -lrb- ijnaf -rrb- fighter pilots .
he entered the imperial navy in 1934 and completed pilot training in december 1936 .
his first combat occurred over china in early 1938 .
he emerged as the top naval ace of the campaign , credited with 14 aerial victories .
subsequently he flew zeros from the aircraft carrier `` zuikaku '' from december 1941 to may 1942 , including at the battle of the coral sea .
in late 1943 , iwamoto 's air group was sent to rabaul , new britain , resulting in three months of the hardest air combat ever undertaken by the imperial japanese navy air force against air raids mounted by u.s. and allied air units .
subsequent assignments were truk atoll in the carolines and the philippines , being commissioned an ensign in october 1944 .
following the evacuation of the philippines , iwamoto served in home defense and trained kamikaze pilots .
like many japanese veterans , iwamoto was reported to have fallen into depression after the war .
his diary was found after his death , with claims of 202 allied aircraft destroyed .
as a result of the japanese use of the british naval practices , the ijnaf scoring system was based on the system the royal navy and the royal air force -lrb- raf -rrb- adopted from world war i until world war ii .
this system differed from the scoring system used by the u.s. navy air force and u.s. marine air force during world war ii .
dr. izawa and professor hata estimated the figure at about 80 or more than 87 in their research work in january 1971 .
in december 1993 izawa wrote that iwamoto was `` virtually '' the top ace of the ijnaf , .
as of mid-1944 , there remained only two ijnaf fighter pilots who were credited with over 100 victories .
depending on various totals cited , tetsuzō iwamoto or hiroyoshi nishizawa was japan 's best ace .
iwamoto was known as the chūtai leader -lrb- flying company , squadron of 8 to 16 fighters -rrb- .
iwamoto was one of few survivors of the ijnaf from the early part of the second world war .
he fought over the indian and the pacific ocean from north to south , and trained his young pilots even in the last months of the war .
