Japanese Ace Interviews: Honda Minoru (Part 3)

[@theblytonian3906]

Just finished watching in all 3 parts of Honda, Minoru-San's interview. Respect. Thank you so much for uploading these with English translations. As a retired career aviator since age 16 myself, I found his frank, truthful recollections fascinating. Some things came as a surprise, such as his relative rating perspective combating the P-38, F6F, F4U with the Zero, and the Zeros he flew out of Rabaul not being radio equipped. Some learned but not really a surprise, i.e. pilots lost falling asleep on the long haul from Rabaul to Guadalcanal and back. His blunt comment on the N1K1-1 vs N1K2-1 Kai made me laugh. Fabulous to hear from someone who flew them with sufficient experience to evaluate them. His accurate comments on 20mm cannon muzzle velocity and rubbish trajectory. His B-29 attack tactics -gutsy plus, escape from the P-51s, and ultimately Hiroshima and Nagasaki experiences were....invaluable, especially the former. Can you imagine?

[@jeffmoore9487]

Well said. It's invaluable to hear combat reality from the "other side", and humbling to here it from a guy like Honda.

[@Leon_der_Luftige]

May I ask how you afforded the pilot training at this young age?

[@kalui96]

@@Leon_der_Luftige probably grew up off a farm if I had to guess

[@jfrorn]

I am very sad for Mr. Honda Minoru. Without flying he feels he is an empty shell. I can understand this very well. I hope he can find a light plane to fly some time... :(

[@tmann153]

I feel I was born into this world just to fly airplanes - a true pilot!

[@ScienceDiscoverer]

It's interesting how he don't even care about the war at all, just wanted to fly!

[@pigpen3499]

My grandfather fought the Japanese in WW11, and I wish he was still around to see these videos. I remember him saying the Japanese are not the people they once were. And this I feel proves it.

[@garliconionshallot]

To be fair, there isn't aren't many countries who's culture has remained largely the same since WW2.

[@markfrench8892]

これらの動画をアップロードしていただきありがとうございます。インタビューの絶対に素晴らしいシリーズ。

[@neilfoster814]

I would have loved to have had Honda San as my flying instructor! He is absolutely right, formation flying is really difficult, especially for a new pilot. What a great and wise guy.

[@frankemcgillivray6695]

Just so amazing that these important, wonderful stories and historical informative recollections were made. So much history is really propaganda; so refreshing to get the real information from people like Mr. Minoru, who had boots on the ground. This whole series is a real treasure.

[@Furthermore26]

Enjoyed watching these. Happy we got to hear some of Honda's stories while he was still alive.

[@ryushiba6742]

He IS alive as of 2017

[@wr0632]

He had piloted zero, shiden-kai and other various air planes, even jet fighters. what a life!!!

[@Leon_der_Luftige]

And he cheated death several times.

[@claywest5322]

I know they must be common Japanese Surnames, but I had to chuckle to myself when i saw the caption "Honda's time at Mitsubishi"

[@pajodato5339]

The Mitsubishi MU-2 Mr. Honda talks about landing in Argentina was used in combat actions in the Falklands War as a recon plane too, in the Fenix Squadron (a civilian squadron who performed disruption missions during wartime).

[@1014kerry]

what a wonderful, informative video! mr. Honda gave a tremendous interview and is very honest, heart felt and concise! I was fascinated to here his story and the wealth of things he did as a pilot from pre way to more recent times. I would like to here more about his flying the G3M and G4M, WOULD BE ITERESTING! PLEASE DO MORE STORIES LIKE THIS ONE!

[@dps2106]

Such a great interview! This man shared true wisdom and showed great humility in admitting his mistakes as well as his stumbling points in training. Great lessons to anyone who has ears to listen!

[@rodrigoayarza9397]

"Develop your own style of flying" - amazing. The Honda way of flying.

[@Colt45hatchback]

What an amazing man, it is especially fantastic to see someone who has the same love for aircraft that i have for cars, i thought i was the only one totally obsessed with something other people see as "just an object".

[@icewaterslim7260]

Like a Comanche without a horse . . . "Without airplanes I am nothing." Amazing guy who has seen so much in a lifetime almost ended several times. Fascinating series of interviews with these survivors. Good work!

[@abhishekdas5414]

What a beautiful and befitting comparison boss, "A Comanche without a horse"

[@Ultranationalist941]

What a life.

[@jengar6258]

thank you man, that was fantastic :)

[@sgt_miranda_]

Hey jengar, why dont u do a vid about this story, using the planes that he mentioned to make it very interesting to wt players??

[@leecrt967]

He's good. I like this guy. Very unassuming. And very talented.

[@kkteutsch6416]

Thank you very much for compart with us your experiences as a war pilot that survived e continued to fly and teach other guys how to Fly, I'm from Brazil and merely a r/c flyer but all of aviation interests me to read and know !

[@jpdillon2832]

This guy is awesome, his stories are so interesting and inspiring.

[@julienhamonic9692]

You must find the honda s way if your name is honda. Most precious lesson i heard in years

[@WarhawkWarpath]

Find Your Own Way or Style And Have a Great one! 😎✌

[@enoshimametals]

great to hear from the pilots themselves thanks

[@surak24]

much respect for this guy

[@garrywagner7717]

I wish we had more interviews like this. Truly an honarble man. This interview shows how much we all have in common. To bad our politicians don't. God bless .

[@Davidpromaster]

Cheers to him and to all people that have a passion in their life and are living their lives for it! Have a good day everybody!

[@jfrorn]

Beautiful stories, I'm glad I found your channel, thank you for posting!

thank you for posting..all these interviews are great

[@Mr.Scootini]

“Now that I am retired, I am an empty shell” Only if he knew what we can do today… I’m sure if I told him about DCS, il-2 and similar other games that predates these games, I’m sure he probably would have hate it at first, but grew to love it because that’s all he can do whilst still flying an airplane… even if it’s pretend flying. Oh! And not to mention sim-flying in VR! I’m sure that would have blown him away. I can picture him old as he is sitting in a chair, with a VR headset on, flying the living crap out of anything he can fly. May this man Rest In Peace and fly eternally. I share the same joy in flying as well, I am a student pilot. Edit: I looked up when he had passed away. He passed in 2021. He could have known about at-home “simulators”

[@bondophobic]

what a great series of videos thank you so much

[@Hawaiian80882]

excellent interview!...Thank-you for sharing

[@DelNegro10]

Thank so much! Best regards from Brazil

[@krystianhinz4575]

cool guy, thank you for putting up these interviews

[@JChamberlin]

Thanks again for doing these.

[@therealgsicht]

Thanks for translating and sharing, these are awesome.

[@bohica4893]

Respect to you sir.

[@tommyjalapeno9169]

Wonderful series of interviews, thank you

[@AmericasChoice]

The Grumman F6F was designed and engineered to fulfill its mission to dominate the Japanese Army and Navy air forces. Fast, rugged, armed and armored. Relatively easy to learn how to fly. And manufactured exclusively AT Grumman up to Grumman's high production standards. It was the total package, so no surprise he ranked it above the Corsair. The Corsair was a hot plane, but had some significant issues. Not the least of which was its propensity to kill inexperienced pilots...

[@tiberiussempronious6252]

I love this man and I feel bad he wasn't flying anymore. Hopefully he got back in the air where he belongs

[@ashistoriasdopassado-w3y]

Thank you! Nice work.

[@marklund117]

Wonderful series. Very informative.

[@kkteutsch6416]

Rest in peace mr..Honda San !

[@abhishekdas5414]

Such a beautiful person... A humble, spiritual man and of course one of the greatest of aviators from the Golden Age..

[@lilibethdoherty295]

Toyota engineering sums up the Japanese philosophy continuous improvement!

[@antonioclemente897]

grazie mille thank you for this!!!!!

[@ReachForTheSky]

Wonderful stuff.

[@ziggy2shus624]

A subject that almost no one talks about in WW2, is the British breaking of the Germany and Japanese secret codes in 1940 and 1941. The British and Americans knew all the major enemy plans before they acted on them. They knew about the attack on Midway and destroyed the Japanese aircraft carriers. The US knew about what became known as the Battle of the Coral Sea before it happened, but a dumb aircraft carrier captain fowled up the ambush and the battle ended as a draw. The US probably knew about the attack on Hawaii before it happened. The US knew about the the Coral Sea only 6 months after Hawaii, but didn't know about Hawaii even though the Japanese code had been broken 6 months before the Hawaii attack ---- doesn't make sense.

[@kkteutsch6416]

At 11:20 : A Honda skilled pilot working for Mitsubishi ...❤

[@tHeWasTeDYouTh]

great video

[@Nomad111.]

awesome interview.

[@lucasr.5863]

Thanks for this amazing content!

[@albejalai9213]

When you really do like your job, everything u did is always fun and easy.. mr. Honda said flying the war planes and modern planes is the same , eventho the technology is quite a gap... but he enjoyed the basic of flying

[@hoodoo2001]

I've known personally only 3 natural pilots that could seem to fly anything. They have this natural hand-eye coordination that seems to make the airplane bend to their will. It's really a joy to experience. And when they are with you they want YOU to fly, to them flying is easy. I've also noticed they tend to lack imagination....perhaps it is this lack of imagination that allows them to fly confidently without fear but they also tend to do restless things like low altitude aerobatics and such. It is not enough just to fly the airplane from point a to b, they have to DO something with the plane. Unfortunately, 2 of the 3 pilots also tend to do other risky things, the bold pilot syndrome. All three tend to be individualists.....they do not work well in "harness". All three have significant charisma, but not necessarily good charisma, they are like predators in terms of being alive, they are always hunting. Actually one is now dead, he burned out his life early, he eroded his skills with hard living and died in a crash doing some things he should not have been doing. Still, being around these guys is like being around a Tiger, very exhilarating and unpredictable. From each I have seen flying in a way that I have never seen it with anyone else.

[@thetnsm3319]

Arigato Honda San.

[@jimmyboomsemtex9735]

not seen anything like this before. hope the future gen learns from all this

[@TheSirianKnight]

Don't know how two sound tracks got mixed up...a bit of clicking can separate the Audio!

[@AudieHolland]

Sorry but that fantastic story of how he landed his plane in virtual darkness at an unknown makeshift airfield, reminded me of a great, great Dutch aerial pioneer. His name was Koene Dirk Parmentier (Koon-uh d'irk' Parmenteer). People interested in history will probably recognize his name from the honourable second place he won in the London-Melbourne airrace which he flew in a regular KLM DC-2 airliner. Most of his opponents flew in specialized 'racing' planes. Anyway, he flew with a registered handicap: the airliner was transporting passengers. In truth, he had only one passenger but still, he flew a DC-2! He won second place but the crazy courage that marked most of the aerial pioneers of that time: when he was flying over unknown territory (in the 1930s, airfields were incredibly rare across the globe, only major and capital cities might have one) and it started to get dark, he and his crew would start looking for a suitable place to land (their DC-2, predecessor to the DC-3 and only slightly smaller). When the found one, they would "open the cockpit window" and fire a few flares to light their own landing attempt. Of course, this was a rare occurrence but still, it sounds crazy to this day. During WW2, he gained more fame as he was flying a DC-3 from Portugal to London and his plane was attacked by German fighterplanes. His only means of defense being his flying skills, it was a fantastic feat to evade his interceptors who looked like fools. "Dude, there was 6 of you and you failed to down a defenseless, slow airliner??" Sad ending to this flying legend, Koene Dirk Parmentier. In bad visibility, he crashed his plane in 1948 at Prestwick Airport, Scotland (UK).

[@blormp1]

Thank God he didn't fly coke or the whole world would be fucked up...

[@mozartjpn137]

He is 97 as of 2020.

0:08-0:21 Doing the same thing very successfully for 6 months must be *crippling* to the outlook of any large organization: else why pay attention to those upstarts who are saying "we need to change"? Even more, they won't listen to those saying "this won't work in the future"? It's easy to ignore those young impetuous geniuses, because how can they know more than you, the successful Admiral with medals on your chest? The Americans learned from their mistakes so much better because they lost in the beginning. So they never stopped trying to change and make things better. They really did learn from their mistakes. The result was the Battle of Midway, which was a true shock worldwide for a very deep reason. In that battle *the Japanese didn't do anything wrong* ...the Americans just did a lot of small and medium sized things *very right* and the result was catastrophic *even for a side that hadn't done anything terribly wrong* This is the result of *not taking things for granted* The Americans didn't take for granted that "this is the way things need to be done".

[@DmdShiva]

The Japanese high command built a simulation to game out the battle of Midway and the tactics to be used... and the American side won. This was unacceptable; they had surprise, they had more ships and more aircraft, so they tweaked the parameters of the simulation until it produced the expected Japanese victory. And then went out and vindicated the original simulation.

[@demonhill]

Legend !!!

[@janrobertbos]

Harigato Honda-san!

[@MrRobster1234]

He lived to the age of 98.

[@mickdunn8423]

SORRY! My stuff is getting a bit overwhelmed by -Juno TakaLeon! But that's OK' Lovely interview!

[@AbdullahZaber]

Great, informative, awesome to hear interview. Also shows that the Germans were not only better fighters but better people too compared to the Americans. Except the hardcore Nazis of course.

[@pengliu2087]

No wonder why no one liked your comment.

[@umavidalongedecasa]

Hahahaha, brazilian here. Landing at night, ARGENTINA?? With a small cargo plane? haha. That sounds a lot like a drug lord ordering an airplane. Pretty much sure about that.

[@blormp1]

HolyShit!!!!

[@mozartjpn137]

He did not know how and when flaps were used.

[@TheSirianKnight]

Here's more! I hope I posted Pt. 1! kzbin.info/www/bejne/b3mXdpdtlKtgqNU

[@TheSirianKnight]

PILOTS ARE PILOTS! No matter where they were born!

[@TheSirianKnight]

..incidentally...the world's oldest Commercial Rated Pilot is Japanese! 90+ yo! I will dig up his name...

[@MeLin-te3ho]

❤

[@blormp1]

Thank God he didn't fly coke or the whole world would be fucked up...

[@breakfastwithtrees9524]

Jesus Loves You

[@reddit9573]

wonder what he thinks about the war now and his view on killing other humans for his then imperialist country?

[@SuperTrumpMAGA]

Red dik, U r talking about the American must be.