Japanese aircraft modeler Georges Vanhove asked:
"Today I am on a Ki-43 /1.
The scheme I chose is for the plane of Major Kinshiro Takeda of 1st Sentai, 3rd Chutai at Hanoï in October 1943.
Depending on the sources the plane is given as either in brown or army Green ....
Do you have any clear information that CAN clarify the matter???"
Here's a photo of the "Hayabusa" of Major Takeda, commander of the 1st Sentai from Sept 1940 until March 1943 from the collection of Mainichi Shimbun via Aireview.
Nohara Shigeru has depicted this aircraft in Model #395 as below:
The same photo is featured in FAOW #13 and according to the caption: "This photo was taken in Hanoi airfield featuring a "Hayabusa" Model 1 Hei. The plane belongs to the commander of the 1st Sentai Takeda Kinshiro. Aikoku #710 Teikoku Seimei Dai 2 Go (Imperial Insurance 2nd)." The insurance company was founded in 1888 and is, today, one of the oldest and largest insurers in Japan changing its name to "Asahi Life" in 1947.
The MA#395 caption says that the photo was taken in October 1942 in Hanoi.
The 1
Sentai, equipped with Ki-27 "Nate" fighters was in May 1942 in Burma (Myanmar) taking part in the air defence of Rangoon. On May 16 departed Mingaladon airfield, Rangoon and went to Akeno in Japan to change to "
Hayabusa". On July 22, the change was completed as was their training with the new fighters and on August 2 returned to
Palembang for air defence duties. Beginning of October, 1942 the unit relocated to French Indochina, first in
Da Nang then in Hanoi. On October 25 took part in the attack against
Mengzi, a city in the southeast of Yunnan province, China, then relocated to Singapore for air defence duties. On September 24, US bombers attacked Hanoi and the unit became part of the 21
Dokuritsu Hikotai again with air defence duties. In the middle of November became part of 12
Hikodan and was assigned to the South Pacific reaching
Truk on January 4. At that time the unit had 49 pilots, 37 fighters and 61 spare (WOW!). On January 9 relocated to Rabaul with 33 "
Hayabusa" fighters and took part in missions against bases in Papua/New Guinea.
Our old friend Fuku argued in his site (
here) that at that time the unit used a two-tone camo of brown and green. Also, that if the a/c belonged to the
sentai commander, it should have the rudder painted in blue indicating the headquarter's
chutai. That it's painted yellow with 3 white stripes indicates that the particular a/c belonged to the 3rd
Chutai, and therefore maybe to another pilot. Also, that it should have IFF stripes on the wing's leading edge as these became standard around that time.
Below is an illustration with the suggested camo scheme.
Personally I think the photo is very clear and the top color is very uniform without anything to suggest the presence of a second color. Also, I don't see any IFF stripe, either on the wing root or the wheel covers. I'm not so sure about the spinner color. It could be either yellow or white. I would lean towards yellow since the chutai color was often repeated there. The props of these early "Hayabusa" were most often silver front with black in the rear. So I would disagree with both illustrations there. Note how well painted the aircraft is with weathering only on the wing root where the pilot stepped to get into the cockpit. Remember that the unit was equipped with very new "Hayabusa" fighters when they went to Vietnam.
Here's a nice model built by Scott VanAken.
My objections would be:
1. the front of the prop should be silver, not white.
2. spinner more probable to be yellow instead of white.
3. wheel covers not green
4. underside color "hairyokushoku", not unpainted silver.
5. top wing hinomaru without white surrounds
In the comments section there is an interesting debate whether the photo above was taken in Vietnam or Palembang.
Will Silk also mentioned that:
According to Arco Aircam Aviation Series No. 15 (Bueschel 1970), color plate A1 identifies a "Ki 43 Ia, 1st Air Combat Regiment, 1st Company, 3rd Squadron, aircraft no. 3, Burma, Dutch East Indies, Summer 1942". The top color is clearly dark green with three red stripes in a chevron pattern aft canopy wrapping around the fuselage. A white combat stripe appears immediately before the tail section. The rudder is red with three white horizontal stripes. Spinner appears as dark green, same color as the fuselage. Undersides are listed as being "standard pale gray" in color. No leading edge yellow identification stripes are depicted.
One thing leads to another so....the markings mentioned in the Aircam publication refer to the photo below.
It's an official Army news photo (from the Arawasi collection) taken while the 1st Sentai was in Akeno, Japan. Not in "French Indo-China early in 1942" as the Schiffer publication on the "Hayabusa" says. According to Japanese sources, these markings were not "officially" adopted by the unit but were applied specially for the photo shoot with the news reporter. AFTER Palembang the unit removed these marking and kept only the rudder color to indicate each chutai and the white stripes on the rudder to indicate different a/c within each chutai. The white fuselage band(s) near the tail also indicate different a/c.
So the whole marking combination of Takeda's a/c could mean: yellow rudder = 3rd Chutai, 2 white fuselage bands = 2 Hentai, 3 white bands on the rudder = MA#395 says 1st a/c or it could mean 3rd a/c.
I believe this information offers further proof that the photo of Takeda's (?) plane was taken in Vietnam.
