Jiro Horikoshi was the chief engineer of many Japanese fighter designs of World War II, including the Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter.Jiro Horikoshi was the chief engineer of many Japanese fighter designs of World War II, including the Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter.
Born: 22 June 1903, Fujioka, Gunma, Japan
Died: 11 January 1982, Tokyo, Japan

Jiro Horikoshi was born near the city of Fujioka, Gunma Prefecture, Japan, in 1903. Horikoshi graduated from the newly established Aviation Laboratory (Kōkū Kenkyūjo) within the Engineering Department of the University of Tokyo,[1] and started his career in Mitsubishi Internal Combustion Engine Company Limited, which later became Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Nagoya Aircraft Manufacturing Plant.
Jiro Horikoshi’s first work was the flawed Mitsubishi 1MF10, an experimental aircraft that never passed the prototype stage after some flight tests. However, lessons learned from this design led to the development of the far more successful Mitsubishi A5M (Allied codename “Claude”) which entered mass production in 1936.
In 1937, Horikoshi and his team at Mitsubishi were asked to design Prototype 12 . Prototype 12 was completed in July 1940, and it was accepted by the Imperial Japanese Navy. Since 1940 was the Japanese year 2600, the new fighter was named as “Model 00” or “Zero” . Subsequently, he was involved with designing many other fighters manufactured by Mitsubishi, including the Mitsubishi J2M Raiden (“Thunderbolt”) and the Mitsubishi A7M Reppu (“Strong gale”)
Despite Mitsubishi’s close ties to the Japanese military establishment and his direct participation in the nation’s buildup towards the Second World War, Horikoshi was strongly opposed to what he regarded as a futile war. Excerpts from his personal diary during the final year of the war were published in 1956 and made his position clear:
After the war, Horikoshi participated in the design of the YS-11 with Hidemasa Kimura. He subsequently left Mitsubishi and taught at educational and research institutions. From 1963 to 1965, he was a lecturer at the University of Tokyo’s Institute of Space and Aeronautics, and was subsequently a professor at the National Defense Academy from 1965 to 1969. Between 1972 and 1973, he was a professor of the Faculty of Engineering of Nihon University.