Battle of Midway. During the Battle of the Eastern Solomons in late August of 1942, Petty Officer Komachi was assigned to cover the strike force that attacked US carriers. The escort of nine Zeros was led by Lieutenant Yasuhiro Shigematsu. When they spotted the USN aircraft approaching the IJN fleet, five of them broke away from the strike force to attack the enemy. Komachi did not follow his section leader Petty Officer First Class Shigetaka Ōmori and stayed with Shigematsu. However, this left only four escorting Zeros with the strike force. As a result of five other Zeros abandoning the escort duty, when the remaining four arrived over the US fleet, they were outnumbered by the enemy CAP. While engaged in a lengthy dogfight near USN carriers, Petty Officer Komachi hit a couple of Wildcats, however, he did not have the time to confirm their crashes. At one point he countered a surprise attack by a Wildcat by dropping his Zero into an intentional spin, from which he recovered at low altitude. Komachi survived the dogfight and proceeded to the meeting point where the dive and torpedo bombers would wait for the fighters in order to lead them back to the friendly carriers. However, when he arrived at the meeting point, the strike force had already left and he was forced to navigate back to the friendly carriers on his own during the late afternoon. He could not manage to locate the carriers before the sunset and was forced to make an emergency landing on water. He was later picked up by one of the friendly destroyers. During the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands in late October of 1942, Petty Officer Komachi was involved in defending the IJN fleet against the US aircraft, while the Japanese strike force eventually sank the carrier Hornet and badly damaged the carrier Enterprise. During the CAP, he and his section leader Petty Officer Ōmori attacked the USN strike group led by Lieutenant Commander Gus Widhelm that was approaching IJN carriers. They managed to shoot down two SBD Dauntless dive bombers (including that of Widhelm) and damage two more to an extent that they were forced to abort. Nevertheless, the rest passed through the CAP and attacked Shōkaku; causing severe damage to the carrier. In the autumn of 1942, he returned to Ōmura airbase on Kyushu and served as an instructor for fighter pilot