Monday 31 August 2020

IJAAF & IJNAF wrecked aircraft #51 - Philippines pt. 8

The last post in the Philippines series is mainly about the shed used by the TAIU to restore the aircraft and their activities.

First we will start with a view of the Kawanishi "Shiden" being restored.

There are at least two "Shiden" in the still. The tail marking on the one on the right looks to me to be the same with this "Shiden", we discussed in an old post here

Another "Shiden" captured and restored was this Model 11 Koh, with tail marking "341S-23" and serial number #7102, that belonged to the Sento 402 Hikotai (Fighter 402 Air Unit) of the 341Ku...

...and became "S9" when restored by the TAIU. Note the number "23" still on the wheel cover.

In the following still we can see a "Hayate" in the foreground, and another "Shiden" being worked on by the TAIU in the basckground.
In the background on the left there is one with its camouflage paint removed and US flag colors applied on the rudder and next to it we can see the tail of another "Shiden". I believe it's "341-16/S. Photo below from MA#587.
It's a "Shiden" that belonged to the Sento 402 Hikotai of the 341Ku like the other "Shiden" above, it just has the tail marking applied differently.
Here are two more 341Ku "Shiden" captured in the Philippines, from the Jeff Ethel collection.

Various sources indicate that the "201-53" "Shiden" was restored as "7", photo below.
In the still above it seems that the restored "Shiden" on the left could have the number "7" on its tail.
  
As can be seen in the still further above, two "Hayate" were also undergoing restoration. Here's another still.
The one in the foreground with the darker pannels on the cowling, had its engine test started.

And finally here's a still showing a "Shoki" getting restored to flying condition.

As to what happened to all these aircraft in the Philippines, here's what Robert C. Mikesh mentions in his "Broken Wings of the Samurai":

"The plan for locating, identifying and safeguarding this equipment found in Japan started long before TAIU activities were moved to Japan.When rumours began that Japan had capitulated, this brought about renewed activity for the 129 team members of the TAIU at Clark AB in the Philippines, the unit that would have this task.
....
At Clark AB, the TAI Unit quickly organized their equipment and packed it for the move. Most of the heavy equipment at Clark was trucked to an awaiting LST for the move to Okinawa. The remaining equipment and advance teams were flown to Okinawa, leaving behind the many Japanese aircraft the unit had been working on for so many months, preparatory to further flight evaluation. Seemingly only one Japanese bomber and one fighter, a "Betty" and a "Frank", are known to have been sent to the United States of all the aircraft evaluated at Clark. At first glance, this eemed quite a loss of hundreds of man hours the mechanics had expended in making selcted aircraft flyable, but greater treaures were expected ahead.
Only one of these enemy aircraft left behind survived for any appreciable time. It was an "Oscar II" that was placed on a pylon and mounted outside Base Operations at Clark."


Erratum: In pt.2 I mentioned that there is no separate Wikipedia page for the ATAIU units. Actually, there is this one.

2 comments:

Dirk Broer said...

"In the following still we can see yet another "Shiden" being worked on by the TAIU". It is a Hayate though, it is a low-wing aicraft, unlike N1K1-J 'Shiden', that is mid-wing.

Arawasi said...

Thanks. I was talking about the aircraft in the background but since it's not very clear, I'll change the wording.