Mitsubishi F1M "Pete"

Another photo from a vintage December 1942 magazine this time showing a "Pete" on the beach of a Southern Pacific island with its crew walking away after coming back from a mission. Note that the floatplane is resting on its trestle in front of a scaffold usually used for propeller or engine changes.

Jean Barby from France added:

"This island is nothing but the shore opposite of Lakunai airfield in Rabaul. In the middle the "brothers" can be seen, they appeared during the volcano eruption in the early 30's. A long time ago I did a couple of dives there, and there are many wrecked barges at the bottom of the two rocks. There are about 40 ship wrecks in Simpson harbor, the bridge of the closest is 120 feet from the surface, the others are further down. Keep in mind that I was there in 1979, and that there were no decompression chamber in case of bends or decompression troubles. Only single tanks were available thus limiting the length and stay at such a depth. Nevertheless one Pete is accessible from the shore and is in fairly good condition (probably less now!) Some pretty good wrecks were still in the bush around Lakunai. A Ki-21, remnants of some Ki-43 and of a twin engine which could be anything from a Ki-46 or a J1N1, and even an in line engine from a Ki-61 or a D3Y2; all those treasures are now buried under heavy ashes as Rabaul was destroyed by the eruption of the volcano close to lakunai, the Mother, in 1994. The new capital is now Vopopo; I also went to Tobera and Vanukanau but had little time to investigate."

Merci beaucoup for the excellent first hand information. If there are underwater photos from dives, we would be most interested to see.

Vintage magazine cover

Hiko Shonen, June 1943 

Nakajima Ki-43 "Hayabusa" (Oscar) & drop tank

A vintage photo from the September 1944 issue of "Asahi Graph" magazine.

The 200l drop tank is prominent in the foreground but what could the other object under the starboard wing be? A 250kg bomb with the fins retouched by the war time sensor, a quite unusual for a "Hayabusa" "Ta-dan" air-to-air cluster bomb or a type 90 small-size flare?

Mitsubishi Ki-46-III "Dinah" - Photo mission over Okinawa

In this series of photos from a May 15, 1945 vintage magazine a Mitsubishi Ki-46 "Dinah" is on a photographic mission over the recently US occupied Okinawa.

The rear observer in a photo taking position. He's holding a Type 100 hand-held aerial camera, standard equipment for the "Dinah".

A rare view of the observer's position showing the Army type 99 Hi Mk 1 radio. The transmitter is on the top and the receiver on the bottom.

According to the caption, the photo above was taken after the crew had returned from their mission over Okinawa. Note that the observer is wearing a life-vest, only natural for missions over water.

 

The pilot is explaining the enemy positions to the unit commander. Note the Ki-46-III in the background.

The caption of the photo above mentions that the films are being developed...

...while in this one the crew are going through the details seen in the developed film.

Finally, a photo of Yontan or Yomitan or Kita airfield of Okinawa showing the various improvements the US forces have done on the original strip. 

VIPs - Lockheed Super Electra Type LO - China Aviation Company

The aircraft featured in this set of photos from vintage publications are Lockheed Super Electra Model 14-38, 14-passenger transports of which 30 were exported to Japan. A first batch of 20 started to be imported from March 1938 by the Army and another ten were imported by Nippon Koku starting from June of the same year. The type was also produced under license by Tachikawa but there were problems with unpaved airfields and complains about the limited cargo. Kawasaki undertook to fixing these problems with famous aircraft designer Doi Takeo as leader of the team. Design work started in September 1939 under the designation Army Type 1 Freight Transport Ki-56 and the first aircraft was completed in the middle of November 1940.

In the above photo featured in the September 1, 1940 issue of magazine "Kokusai Shashin Joho", Wang Yitang, Minister of the Examination Yuan for the Nanking (Nanjing) collaborationist government led by Wang Jingwei, is flying to various cities around China in a Super Electra since the establishment of the new government in March 1940. Note the guy behind him on the left something between a Japanese yakuza and a Chinese Triad member. The plane probably belongs to the China Aviation Company. The cropped guy on the far right of the photo is wearing a cup with what looks like the emblem of the airline.

Japanese flight attendants, called "Air Girls" back then, of the China Aviation Company are posing for this photo commemorating the first time they flew in the Dalian-Shanghai service of the airline on August 17, 1940. To me they look more like school-girls if it wasn't for the pin with the company emblem and I'm certain I would prefer to be serviced by them instead of the uptight flight attendants with the plastic smile I occasionally encounter.

In the photo above passengers and China Aviation Company personnel celebrate the inauguration of the new Peking-Shanghai route on March 14, 1939. A company pilot wearing a leather jacket with a fur collar and a pilot's cup can be seen in the foreground. Note the Douglas DC-2 in the background next to the Super Electra   

Carrier "Junyo", Zero A6M5 by Saito Hisao

A brilliantly realistic diorama by master modeller Saito Hisao depicting the deck of aircraft carrier "Junyo" during the battle for the Mariana Islands in June 1944.

For the carrier deck he used modified Edward parts while the figures come from various companies. The Zero is a Hasegawa in 1/48, with all the markings handmade using numerous maskings. 

 

Japanese Experimental Trasport Aircraft of the Pacific War, by Giuseppe Picarella

Title: "Japanese Experimental Transport Aircraft of the Pacific War"

Author & Illustrator: Giuseppe "Joe" Picarella

Published by: Mushroom Model Publications, ISBN 978-83-61421-41-2, h/b,

Contact: http://www.mmpbooks.biz/

 Pages: 248, Size: A-4, Photos: 312 (17 in color), 62 drawing and illustration sets most in color. 

Received last weekend a copy of this new publication and I like it!

I was originally taken aback by the title...I mean, how many "experimental" Japanese transports were out there and what kind of book would someone write about them, but once I started going through the pages I got to like the book a lot.

So, basically, forget the title. This book is the best effort so far on the much overlooked subject of J. Navy and Army transports in any language. The first two chapters offer excellent overviews of the organisation of the transport units of IJAAF and IJNAF with plenty of details on the Navy transport kokutai. 

Chapter 3, 20 pages, is specifically about the operations of paratroops and special forces.

Chapter 4, 25 pages, is about the experimental transports of the Army. It covers types like Tachikawa Ki-77 & Ki-74, the best ever coverage and photographic material on the Tachikawa Ki-92 as well as the Mitsubishi Ki-97, Kokusai Ki-105 "Otori", Tachikawa Ki-110, Kokusai Ki-111, Tachikawa Ki-114 and Ki-120.

Chapter 5 deals with the navy experimental transports, specifically the Nippi L7P1, Kawanishi H11K1-L "Soku", Kawanishi K-60, K-120, K-200 and Showa L2D5. Finally a rather "what-if" Dewoitine/Mitsubishi D.350.

Chapter 6 & 7 deal with the IJAAF & IJNAF experimental gliders and their units with good photographic coverage and plenty of information.

Chapter 8 is a photo coverage of the transport planes that carried the surrender delegation while chapter 9 features a very interesting photo collection of captured transports at the end of the war.

Chapter 10 is entitled "Post-war Japanese Transport Operations" and examines how the Allies used a number of Japanese transports immediately after the end of the war and in chapter 11 how they evaluated them. The short but with excellent photos, 13 of them in color, chapter 12 is about the "Surviving Transport Aircraft of Imperial Japan".

The final chapter 13 is a photo album of Japanese transports with 42 photos of exceptional quality.

Appendixes 1 & 2 cover in short most if not all the J. Navy and Army transports of WWII. Appendix 3 includes a document entitled "Service manual for L2D2" while appendix 4 presents a list with the civilian registrations of transports while appendix 5 explains the Japanese Aircraft Designations and Allied Code Names.      

Overall: Don't hesitate to buy this book due to the title. It's a highly recommended publication, of interest to J. aviation fans as well as modellers who will find in it a treasure trove of information and modelling ideas. Some of the photos can be found in past publications but in this book they are bigger and of better quality. There is a good number of brilliant new photos, especially the Ki-92 set, and "Joe" Picarella has made the book really beautiful with his detailed illustrations. 

(Special thank yous to the author and publisher for the copy.

No thanks to Osprey who haven't sent me copies of the books I contributed material in.)

VIPs - Nakajima-Douglas DC-2

In this photo from a vintage publication second from right War Minister General Sugiyama Gen (Hajime)  is arriving at Ming Ku Kung (Daiko) airfield of Nanking (Nanjing) on April 14, 1938. He is flying with a Nakajima built DC-2 during his China front inspection from April 12 to 21. In December of the same year he was assigned as commanding general of the North China Area Army.

The DC-2 is one of the five Nakajima built under licence from Douglas from February 1936 to 1937. They were pressed into military service in 1938 and received military camouflage as can be seen in the photo.

Mitsubishi G3M "Nell"

Another photo from a vintage publication showing a "Nell" getting maintained somewhere in the South Pacific. 

Of interest is the entrance hatch in the nose. There was nothing really inside this area but offered access to the back side of the instrument panel and the auto pilot. 

Note also the crew entrance hatch and the ladder behind the radio antenna under the fuselage. 

Kawanishi E5K1 - Hokoku #1

The Kawanishi E5K1 is not a very well known Japanese type. 

The story starts with an IJNAF order in 1927 to Aichi, Kawanishi and Nakajima for a 3-seat reconnaissance seaplane. Design engineer LCDR Saha Jiro started building Yokosho's (Yokosuka Koku Kosho - Yokosuka Naval Arsenal) own version based on an imported Heinkel 28.

It started as a modification of the Yokoso Type 14 Reconnaisance Seaplane but with welded steel-tube fuselage and redesigned wings. Yokosho completed their first prototype in August 1928 followed by one equipped with a Jupiter Model 8 engine and another with a Jupiter Model F9 engine. 

While Yokosho were building their own prototypes on January 16, 1931 Kawanishi received a direct order by the Navy to build two pre-production aircraft which they did on October 25, 1931 in cooperation with Yokosho.

The E5K1 with Jupiter engines were called early type by Kawanishi and when they installed liquid cooled 500hp, 12cylinder Type 91 engines these were called later types. The later types were faster by four knots and even though they could climb to 3,000 meters in 25minutes, they could climb to that altitude faster than the early types by 13 minutes and 20 seconds. 

In total Yokosho built three prototypes and Kawanishi two pre-production and 15 production planes.

On March 3, 1932 the ceremony for the first presentation aircraft for the Navy (Hokoku) took place at the Naruo factory of Kawanishi. The photo below from a vintage publication is from that ceremony. The E5K1 received the name "Nikke" from the donor Nippon Keori KK (Nippon Woolen Co Ltd), a member of the Kawanishi zaibatsu.

  Another photo of the aircraft from the Arawasi collection.