From the June 4, 2012 History Channel "The Akutan Zero: How a Captured Japanese Fighter Plane Helped Win World War II" by Elizabeth Hanes.
On June 4, 1942, Japan attacked an Allied position at Dutch Harbor on Unalaska Island in the Aleutian Island chain.
Japanese pilot Tadayoshi Koga was hit by ground fire and crashed. After he was hit, Koga headed to Akutan Island which had been designated as an emergency landing field. The boggy soil snared his landing gear and flipped the Zero over end-to-end and it landed upside down.
Japanese pilots were under strict orders to destroy their Zeros if they were disabled so they wouldn't fall into enemy hands and be examined. Koga died instantly from a broken neck.
A U.S. Navy pilot on routine patrol spotted it and and after three attempts to recover the wreckage, Americans succeeded and sent it to San Diego to be restored.
--GreGen
The USS North Carolina (BB-55) My all-time favorite warship. As an elementary school student in North Carolina, I donated nickels and dimes to save this ship back in the early sixties.
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