IJAAF Paratroopers - Exhibition - video

Another NHK video today featuring IJAAF paratroopers and more.

Emperor Showa (a.k.a Hirohito) could not, ofcourse, see first hand the paratrooper op against Palembang so the Army had to put up a show for him. And so, on July 21, 1942, H.I.M. visited the Utsunomiya Aviation School in Tochigi Prefecture for a special exhibition. 

The bugler call at the beginning of the video is the Japanese equivalent to "to the colors" of sorts. It sounded when the IJNAF flag was raised.

The cleanest version I could find is here. A vintage version with mediocre sound is here. The Kaijo JIETAI still uses it. A rather poor execution can be heard here.

H.I.M. arrives at the airfield, greeted by cadets of the Shonen Hikohei (Youth Aviation Cadet) programme.

A paratrooper is standing in front of a "Sally" or a Ki-57.

The Emperor was introduced to a number of captured Allied aircraft like, Lockheed Hudson (not seen in the video), Hawker Hurricane, Martin B10 bomber and more.

A flight of Mitsubishi Ki-51 "Sonia"is doing a low pass.

The Emperor's area. The Ki-21 can be seen in the background on the right.

The then-Prime Minister Tojo Hideki was naturally also there.

The still below illustrates what we described in the previous post regarding the chest parachute. In this case the paratrooper has untied it from his chest and has left it hanging underneath him as he descents.