only 13 survived according to this source: Mitsubishi not the major manufacture?
http://ww2db.com/aircraft_spec.php?aircraft_model_id=3
By the end of WW2, 10,937 Zero fighters were manufactured. Mitsubishi built only 3,880, while the majority of the remainder were built by Nakajima, the company that declined to bid on the original request for such a fighter.
After the war, most surviving A6M Zero fighters were destroyed. A few of them were sent to the United States for testing. Many of them were abandoned across the various Pacific islands, rusting very quickly in jungle climates. Only about 13 were available for museum display today, such as the Zero fighter on display at Yushukan museum adjacent to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, Japan. Only a very small number are in flyable condition today.
“...Many of them were abandoned across the various Pacific islands, rusting very quickly in jungle climates...”
Damn... imagine recovering a couple of those and restoring them. Probably completely obliterated by now. 13 left, out of thousands.
I was at an airshow in Reading PA last summer; they had a P61 Black Widow that was recovered from a crash site in New Guinea and is under restoration. There’s only a few of those left too. Big, twin tail night fighter, sort of like a P38 Lightning on steroids.