A rare very clear video featuring Mitsubishi Ki-30 "Ann" light bombers, in overall IJAAF hairyokushoku (gray green), belonging to the Army Maintenance School brought out to the field.
According to the Japanese Wiki:
The Army Aviation Maintenance School (陸軍航空整備学校) was an educational institution (military academy) of the Imperial Japanese Army, established in what is now Tokorozawa City, Saitama Prefecture.
On June 30, 1938, under Imperial Decree No. 470, the maintenance training for non-commissioned officers, officer candidates, and juvenile airmen was transferred from the Army Aviation Technical School to the newly founded Army Aviation Maintenance School at the Army Tokorozawa Airfield.
In August 1943, it was renamed the Tokorozawa Army Aviation Maintenance School. It provided training to young airmen and students who volunteered to become young airmen responsible for aircraft maintenance.
In February 1945, it was reorganised into the 3rd Air Education Group (3rd Koku Kyoikudan).
The school's tail marking is rather complicated and has not been properly documented. It consisted of a simple red (until recently it has been depicted as black) bar on the rudder and a hiragana character above it. This hiragana character represented the i-ro-ha system of numbering, in other words, every hiragana character on the tail of the school aircraft represented a number.
The school regularly received a few (about half a dozen or less) of all the latest in-service (i.e. not experimental) IJAAF aircraft types for the students to practice maintenance on.
As a rule, one aircraft from each type received the hiragana "い" ("i"-1) on it's tail, therefore there are photos of different aircraft types with the "い" on their tails.
Next, each aircraft from each type received a hiragana in sequence.
Explain: if the school had, for example, five Ki-10 fighters, these received the hiragana (numbers) i-ro-ha-ni-ho (1-2-3-4-5). If the school had four Ki-1 bombers, these received the hiragana (numbers) i-he-to-chi (1-6-7-8). And if the school had three Ki-4 reconnaissance aircraft, these received the hiragana (numbers) i-ri-nu (1-9-10).
When the school decided to get rid of the older types that were not in service any more and replace them with the latest type, these aircraft received hiragana (number) characters that were available (not in sequence).
Explain: In the example above the school had 12 aircraft of three different types with hiragana (numbers) reaching to number 10. If the school decided to replace all the old Ki-10 fighters with six new Ki-27 "Nates" and in the meantime one Ki-1 with hiragana "to" on its tail was lost due to an accident, then these "Nates" received the following hiragana (numbers) i-ro-ha-ni-ho-to (1-2-3-4-5-7).
So, if you see a "Hayabusa" with the hiragana "nu" (10) on its tail, this doesn't mean that the school had ten "Hayabusa" fighters.
Very simply put, the school had a fixed number of aircraft (about 50 or less) and gave each aircraft whatever number was available from 2 to 50.
Confusing? I know. It took me a while to figure their system out.
In the video, the "Ann" in the foreground on the left has the hiragana "い" ("i"-1) on the tail, while the one next to it has, I believe, the hiragana "う" ("u"-24) on the tail. Again, this does not mean that the school had 24 "Ann" bombers numbered from 1 to 24. They would be way too many for the school and if you look closely, you will notice in the video different types of aircraft next to them.
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