The Mitsubishi A5M was a Japanese carrier-based fighter aircraft. It was the world's first monoplane shipboard fighter and the direct ancestor of the famous Mitsubishi A6M 'Zero'. The Allied code-name was Claude; the Japanese Navy designation was "Type 96 carrier-based fighter" .

The Flying Tigers encountered the Type 96 although not officially, one was shot down at Mingaladon Burma over the airfield on 1-29-42.
Some A5Ms were still in service at the beginning of World War II in the Pacific. United States intelligence sources believed the A5M was still the primary Navy fighter, but they had already been replaced by the A6M 'Zero' on first-line aircraft carriers and with the Tainan Air Group. Other Japanese carriers and air groups continued to use the A5M until production of the 'Zero' caught up with demand. The last combat actions with the A5M as a fighter took place at the Battle of the Coral Sea on 7 May 1942, when two A5Ms and four A6Ms of the Japanese carrier Shōhō fought against the US planes that sunk their carrier.Most remaining airframes were used for kamikaze attacks in the closing months of the war.
                                                                                                                                         -- Wikipedia