Between June 26 and August 19, 1939 a long series of meetings took place between then British ambassador to Japan, Robert Craigie and the Japanese Government headed by Minister of Foreign Affairs Arita Hachiro. The subject was the Tientsin Incident (here) and among those who participated were naturally Army commanders of the Japanese Army stationed in China. The photo below was taken at Haneda Airport on August 14, at 6:00am upon the return to China of the Army officers who participated in the meetings. Front row on the right sits Major General Muto Akira, next to him sits Lt Colonel Ota, while behind Muto sits Major Ota (Kempei) and next to him Major Miyamoto. They all wear Model 1938 service dress, field caps instead of peaked caps and Maj Gen Muto is wearing brown aiguillette indicating he is serving in the field while the other two are wearing gold, the usual formal color.
The airplane interior is of either a DC-2 or a DC-3. Any thoughts?
Our friend Iskender Mailibayev sent us the following comment:
I'm fairly sure it is a DC-3. As far as I know the standard DC-2 passenger cabin arrangement included rows of single seats on the left and right, divided by an aisle. DC-3 had its fuselage widened by 60+ cm. compared to DC-2, which allowed for 3 seats arrangement (2+1), and that's exactly what we see on this picture.
Thank you very much Iskender!
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