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First verifiable air to air kill {American v Japanese] in WWII was by a gunner on board a PBY Catalina Dec 10 1941.
Several pilots got confirmed (6?) air to air kills at Pearl Harbor Dec 7th. George Welch, heir to the juice company got 4 confirmed that day alone.
George Welch
He did not get the Medal of Honor because he took off without orders
.
CW
I suspect we are dicing an orange here. War was not declared on December 7 so hence, it is debatable to when the first air to air kill was made in WWII.
I imagine there are similar questions with what occurred during the Neutrality Patrol of whether or not they count in WWII.
You are incorrect the Japanese declared war on the US during the attack. They were late and had wanted to deliver the declaration before the attack. WWII also started in 1939 not 1941.
CW
Why not 1937?
Because, while there was shooting there was no declaration of war delayed or not.
the issue was resolved diplomatically.
And then we returned the favor with the Flying tigers before Pearl Harbor.
You missed his point. He tried to say that according to some historians a more correct starting date for WW2 is 1937, the year of the second sino-japanese war, more commonly known as the japanese invasion of china.
My bad, I did not catch the 39 part of the qouted post. Ya, I missed half of a two sentence qoute. Chalk it up to being up to long to switch the schedule aqround.
Having said that, you can argue it either way. As the only "countries" invovled in 37 were various chinese "governments", Japan and Japanese surogates and the area of conflict was limited to a single theatre.
On the other hand all parties involved were later involved in the war, it was a primary cause to the Japanese/US war and that Japan while not actively engaged in combat with the European powers in China the plan was to eventually supplant those powers. Carrying this logic a bit further you could date the start of the war to 1936 and the Spanish Civil War as American, German Russian English and French nationals were all involved on one side or the other and German and Russian governments were involved.