the He 112 was rejected and the option for the additional 100 was canceled. The thirty already purchased were delivered over a period in 1937 and '38, drawn from a number of production runs. Upon arriving in Japan they were used for training duties, but the V11 with its DB600Aa was used for testing. As it turns out the A7 designation would later be assigned to the Mitsubishi A7M, a high performance successor of the Zero which never saw combat. Although Japan phased the A7He1 out of service before the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the Allies assumed it still was in use during World War II and assigned the reporting name Jerry to it. Spain When V9 was sent to Spain in the spring of 1938 it was primarily as a sales effort to interest the Spanish in the He 112 design. It was flown by a number of Spanish pilots in various test and show flights. The pilots reports all praised the plane, but at the same time they all considered it to be underpowered. Nevertheless, the government decided to purchase the He 112 B and form up a new group under the command of Comandante José Muñoz Jiménez. An order was placed for twelve planes and they started to arrive in November 1938, where they were assembled in León by Heinkel workers. The first two were ready by December, followed by another seven B-1s and ten B-2s in early 1939. The first seven aircraft were ready by the end of January, and were formed up as 2a Escuadra Grupo de Caza 5-G-5 (2nd Squadron of Fighter Group 5-G-5). When another eight were completed the 1a Escuadra was formed up as well, and the remaining four were split among them as they became available. 1a Escuadra lasted only a short time before they were re-equipped with Bf 109 B and Bf 109 C handed down from the Legión Cóndor as they received their new Bf 109 E. Grupo 5-G-5 was then incorporated into 7a Escuadra de Caza (7th Fighter Regiment) along with 2-G-2 and 3-G-3 with their Fiat CR.32 biplanes. The He 112s were to operate as top cover over the Fiats, which had considerably worse altitude performance. Operations started on 17 January 1939, and on the 20th the operational plan proved sound when they encountered a number of I-16s over Igualada. The squadron commanding officer,