he attempts emergency landing on what appears to be grassy terrain on Akutan Island but turns out to be soft muskeg, fighter overturning as landing gear makes contact, pilot killed by a broken neck. Attempt by Japanese submarine crew to rescue pilot is unsuccessful. U.S. Navy search team discovers nearly undamaged Zero with dead pilot still under the canopy, retrieves it and in August 1942 ships it to the Assembly and Repair Department at NAS North Island, San Diego, California for repair and evaluation, the second intact example to fall into American hands. Airframe had been built by Mitsubishi at Nagoya in February 1942.Mizrahi, Joe, "Samurai", Wings, Granada Hills, California, December 1972, Volume 2, Number 6, p. 22. The Navy releases photos of the aircraft both under repair and in flight at San Diego on 15 October 1942. 4 June "San Rafael, Calif., June 5, (AP) – Fourteen army flyers died in the crash of a heavy bomber near here last night, the army said today. Flames consumed the wreckage when the plane hit a hilltop as the pilot circled for an emergency landing. The plane developed trouble soon after a takeoff and radioed nearby Hamilton field to clear a runway. The pilot circled toward the field. The big ship lost altitude and then dived into a hillside on the Herzog ranch, three miles northwest of Hamilton field. As it crashed great flames swept through the wreckage. Not a man escaped." Consolidated LB-30 Liberator, AL601, was destroyed. 4 June Pilot Dale Eugene Anderson escapes injury when he force lands Curtiss P-40-CU Warhawk, 39-289, of the 38th Fighter Squadron, 55th Fighter Group, out of Paine Field, Everett, Washington, ~three miles N of McChord Field, coming down about 40 feet off of the Pacific highway just S of Tacoma city center. "The plane passed over the tops of several automobiles on the busy highway. One driver, Charlie Mael, news stand operator at Fort Lewis, said the plane just missed his automobile, struck a ditch adjoining the highway and came to a stop a few feet from the road. Witnesses said the pilot walked away from the burning plane." 4 June During the Battle of Midway, USS Yorktown, slowed to 16 knots by previous battle damage, launches Grumman F4F Wildcat fighters in early afternoon to meet a second Japanese attack force of ten Kate torpedo bombers and their Zero fighter escort. "A twenty-two-year-old