Additional Evidence

SYMA went to great effort to develop evidence from records other than what was in the Bougainville jungle.

Lefty Gardner flew his P-38 and duplicated the maneuvers that Lanphier said he did. It was impossible for Lanphier to have done what he said he did in zooming up into the attacking Zeros and then roll over on his back and dive down and attack a bomber in the time between his left upward turn and when the Yamamoto plane was down in the jungle. Click here to view Lefty Gardner’s analysis.

A sworn affidavit from Kenji Yanagiya says, “I saw one P-38 firing into the tail of Admiral Yamamoto’s bomber and I saw the Admiral’s airplane emitting smoke and flames while one P-38 was directly behind it. I saw the Admiral’s airplane descend toward the jungle in an attitude of forced landing within 20 to 30 seconds from when I first saw one P-38 behind the Admiral’s airplane firing into it. From the time that I first sighted any of the P-38s until the Admiral’s airplane was down in the jungle was two minutes or less”.  Click here to view Kenji Yanagiya’s affadavit.

Yanagiya said that the Yamamoto bomber proceeded on a straight course towards Buin so a calculation of Lanphier’s overtaking speed showed conclusively that Lanphier had not overtaken the Yamamoto airplane in the 20 – 30 seconds before it was in the jungle as set forth by Yanagiya. It is interesting that Yanagiya also said that it was only approximately two minutes from the time they first saw the P-38s until the Admiral was down in the jungle. Dr. Richard Kohn later manipulated Yanagiya’s statements where Yanagiya said that from the time he first saw an attack on the Admiral’s airplane until it was down in the jungle was about 20 seconds; he further stated that from the time they first saw the P-38s until the Admiral’s plane was down in the jungle was about two minutes. Dr. Kohn, in his attempt to show that there was time for Lanphier to overtake Yamamoto’s bomber after Lanphier zoomed up into the Zeros, manipulates the two minutes from first sighting to indicate that there was two minutes for pursuit by Lanphier. This was one of the reasons given by Dr. Kohn for refusing to convene a new Victory Credit Board of Review and let SYMA present the new evidence that it had accumulated.