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Maybe between planes but if you read Boyington's book you would know it took place between him and the Japanese on the ground on airbase he was over

Sounds like authors embellishment.

Japanese bases in the Solomon islands were at the end of a very tenuous supply chain and once you're getting into 43' American supplied radios and their parts are in short supply.

Japanese radios were awful in that period. Their radar, when it even existed was worse. There was simply no quality control so if you turned on even a brand new set, it often didn't work.

Zero pilots would typically just remove their radio since it was also bulky and added weight to an aircraft that was already being outperformed by their opposition.