Derelict Aircraft I have Known, number Zero

My piece on a derelict Soviet MiG 17 jet fighter aircraft in Texas was something of a departure from the usual Ancient Dan fare, to be sure. To continue that theme as a series of occasional posts will permit me to do several things: 1) indulge my interest in old historical aircraft; 2) share a bit of my own background; 3) conduct a little research on claims or appearances; and 4) show pictures of old ruined stuff. This entry attempts to do all four (not necessarily in that order).

I inherited a love of airplanes from my Dad, who—as confirmed by his own mother—apparently announced at the age of five that he wanted to be an aeronautical engineer. He did that, graduating in Aeronautical Engineering from The Georgia Institute of Technology in 1955.

While in college Dad became aware of a WWII Japanese Zero sitting in the small back lot of the privately-owned Atlanta Museum on the edge of downtown, within walking distance from Georgia Tech. He would occasionally trot over there to see the derelict plane, a rare example of a famous type that made its appearance to U.S. forces at Pearl Harbor and outperformed all American aircraft at the beginning of the war (only a decade before Dad’s matriculation at The Institute). 

When I was quite young, Dad showed me the Zero during one of many trips to Atlanta to attend Tech football games. After I enrolled at The Institute in 1974 (as an Aerospace Engineering major) I would also go and visit the Zero from time to time. I will admit now that I never paid for admission to the museum itself, because one could simply drive to the street behind the building and access the ungated lot after hours! It was “Ground Zero” for my appreciation of derelict historical aircraft.

I showed the Zero to numerous friends, who may have appreciated the historical significance of the famed fighter aircraft but usually did not share my fascination with the sad remains. Most of the pictures here are from a visit in March 1978, with several Huntsville buddies in tow, made with a Kodak Instamatic 126-film camera I kept in my 1967 VW Beetle.

Now for the nerdy and research stuff. Many sites provide good histories of warplanes, including the Japanese Zero, so I will not rehearse that here. But the now-defunct Atlanta Museum advertised its Zero, the one I frequently visited, as the first one captured by U.S. forces in WWII (a claim documented here). The story of the first recovery of an intact Zero (by U.S. Navy in the Aleutian Islands campaign of 1942; (see Wikipedia’s excellent review) is fascinating and the specific plane was significant for American intelligence and strategy for countering the superior-performing Japanese fighter.

The specific Zero captured on Akutan Island in the Aleutians was an A6M2 model 21, the early type used in the attack on Pearl Harbor. But, already in the 1970s, I could see (as an obviously nerdy type) that the Zero I knew so well was a later A6M5 model 52. The giveaway was the later larger engine with carburetor intake at the top and exhaust manifolds distributed along the side of the (missing) cowling instead of a pair underneath the nose. The Atlanta Museum Zero could not be the same plane as the Akutan Zero! [I think I warned that this was the nerdy research part—but it does combine my loves of warplanes and historical research.] The relevant bits can be seen in my first Zero photo above and in this one: 

Some digging has revealed that despite the Atlanta Museum’s claim, their Zero was captured later in the war, apparently with several others on Saipan, and shipped to the U.S. for evaluation—according to the Warbirds Directory. That source, however, still identifies the former Atlanta Museum plane as an A6M2 model 21 (listing here in pdf form, [see third entry]), which it clearly is not. In any case, the Atlanta Museum closed in 1993 and the Zero was eventually procured by Microsoft co-founder Paul G.Allen for his Flying Heritage & Combat Armor Museum in Everett, Washington, where it was displayed in unrestored condition.

An excellent album of pictures of the Zero in the FHCAM (source of the one above) can be seen here on Facebook, including a good history properly identifying it as an A6M5 type 52 and as production number 1303. Dad would have loved to see it there.

Sadly, I did not get to visit the Zero in the Flying Heritage & Combat Armor Museum either. The museum closed for COVID-19 and Paul Allen died of cancer in 2000. Mitubishi A6M5 type 52, no. 1303 was sold along with many other museum assets. I have not determined the current owner or location of the plane.

Thanks for looking!