Nishizawa, Sakai and Ota stood at stiff attention and made a herculean effort to conceal their mirth while Sasai dressed them down over their “idiotic behavior” and prohibited them from staging any more aerobatic shows over enemy airfields. Still, the Tainan Ku.’s three leading aces secretly agreed that Nishizawa’s aerial choreography of the “Danse Macabre” had been worth it.

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Nishizawa added another P-39 to his score on May 20. A strike on Lae by six B-25Cs of the 13th Squadron, 3rd Bomb Group, on May 24 brought a vicious reaction by 11 Zeros. Nishizawa reached the Mitchells first, and in moments his cannon shells sent the lead plane, flown by Captain Herman F. Lowery, crashing in flames just beyond the Japanese airstrip. In the running fight that ensued between Lae and Salamaua, Ota got the second B-25 in the formation, Sakai got two and Sasai another, leaving only one riddled survivor to return to Port Moresby.

The Japanese were flying low over the jungle on May 27 when they encountered four Boeing B-17Es of the 19th Bomb Group flying in column, escorted by 20 Bell P-400s (export models of the P-39 with a 20mm cannon in place of the P-39’s 37mm weapon) of the 35th Pursuit Group, which had arrived at Port Moresby to relieve the battered 8th Group in late May. The Zeros attacked from below and a low-level dogfight ensued, during which Sakai shot down one Airacobra and drove another down to crash in a mountain pass. Coincidentally, Nishizawa and Ota also claimed Airacobras under identical circumstances, each one driving his victim down to crash and then pulling up at the last possible second.

Nishizawa added another P-39 to his personal tally on June 1, followed by two more on June 16. On June 25, he personally downed a P-39 and shared in the destruction of a second with two other pilots. Another P-39 fell to his guns on July 4.

Despite such dazzling successes, the Japanese did not have things entirely their way. Twenty-three Zeros intercepted a flight of B-26s over Lae on June 9. They had claimed four of them over Cape Ward Hunt when they were jumped by 11 P-400s of the 39th Squadron, 35th Fighter Group. Warrant Officer Satoshi Yoshino, a 15-victory ace, was shot down and killed by Captain Curran L. Jones, who later brought his score up to five while flying a Lockheed P-38F Lightning. Even the redoubtable Nishizawa met his match on July 11; his Zero was shot up in an unsuccessful attempt to bring down a B-17, but he did down a P-39 on the same day. Similarly, a Lockheed A-28 Hudson proved too fast and tough for him to bring down on July 22. On July 25, however, he downed another P-39 over Port Moresby and joined eight other Zeros in shooting down a B-17 over Buna.

When five more B-17s came to bomb Lae on August 2, the Japanese tried out a new tactic–attacking head-on. The result was spectacular–Nishizawa’s cannon shells tore into the first and it exploded in flames. Ota, Sasai and Sakai, also accounted for B-17s. Three P-39s tried to intervene, only to be outmaneuvered and shot down by Nishizawa, Ota and Sakai. After a running fight, the fifth Fortress was also shot down, but not before its gunners had damaged Sakai’s Zero and shot down Seaman 1st Class Yoshio Motoyoshi–Nishizawa’s wingman. Upon landing, Nishizawa ignored the cheers of his ground crewmen. “Refuel my plane and load my guns,” he ordered, and he set out on a lone search for his lost wingman. “Two hours later he returned,” Sakai wrote, “misery written on his face.”

The Tainan Ku. moved to Lakunai airfield on Rabaul the next day. On August 7, word arrived that U.S. Marines had landed on the island of Guadalcanal, more than 500 miles away at the lower end of the Solomon Islands chain, at 5:20 that morning. Without delay, Lt. Cmdr. Nakajima led 17 Zeros to escort 27 Mitsubishi G4M bombers of the 4th Ku. in an attack on the U.S. Navy task force supporting the invasion. The Japanese were met by 18 Grumman F4F-4 Wildcat fighters and 16 Douglas SBD-3 Dauntless dive bombers from the aircraft carriers Saratoga, Enterprise and Wasp.

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