Wednesday 4 September 2019

934 Kokutai "Rufe"

There is a discussion in the comments regarding the 934Ku "Rufe" with the inazuma (lightning) on the fuselage. There is a series of good photos in the fairly recently published "Nankai no Umiwashi" by Dai Nippon Kaiga, available from our on-line bookstore here
Unfortunately I can't scan the photo without destroyng my copy so instead I'll post the artwork by Nishikawa Yoshinobu which is accurate in every respect except perhaps the hues of each color.
 
As you can see the tail marking is in yellow, the fuselage hinomaru have a darker surround, the wing top hinomaru have a white surround, the wing undersurface hinomaru have no surround.
It has very narrow IFF stripes on the wing leading edges.

1 comment:

Will Silk said...

Hi Everyone,

Not to add fuel to the fire here, but this would directly go against several profiles I've seen depicting Rufes from this squadron. Many profiles I've come across, albeit all online, display the tail numbering in red.

In a few photos I've come across in books of Rufes belonging to other units, I'd have to support the red coloring, as the tail numbers appear in the same tone as the hinomaru insignia. However, this brings up the age old photo interpretation of the black and white film then in use.

In no way am I doubting the source that Georges provides here, I'm just simply saying that there seems to be more sources that offer conjecture as to the tail numbering color.

Print Scale Decals did a decal sheet that had the tail codes in red if I remember as well. What they used as to their source for that decision is unknown to me.

It'd be great to lay the gauntlet down and have a concrete reliable source that can be pinpointed as to being correct on the matter.

Best Regards,

Will Silk
Pennsylvania, USA