The picture below shows a part of “Action Report of the 252nd Air Group on Nov 5, 1944”. The name, “Captain Torajiro Haruta”, can be found, the remark of which says,
“When Capt. Haruta took off, three F6Fs suddenly came down from the sun’s direction, and attacked Haruta’s plane, making him burn to death.”
When the news of his death reached to Tetsuzo, he mourned, saying,
“If I had been with him, I wouldn’t let him die.”
Tetsuzo got dengue fever in bed in Taiwan when Haruta was killed.
In Rabaul, on New Britain Island, in late 1943 and early 1944, Captain Haruta had been the immediate superior of Tetsuzo Iwamoto, though Tetsuzo had been more superior than Harta when it had come to air combat technique.
