Japanese Airfields, Equipment & more #23 - revised

Various activities at the airfield (IJNAF version).

Removing cowling panels to gain access and service the engine(s). Thank you Pavel Vincenc for contributing the photo in the middle right.

Setting up a whole workshop for the engine. Note all the interesting details mentioned in previous posts in this series, like the maintenance platforms, the big crane and more.

Changing tyres; Zero on the left, "Nell" on the right.

Pushing the aircraft around the airfield. Note the not-often-seen in Navy airfields tail wheel towbar on the tail of the Kasumigaura Kokutai Nakajima B5N "Kate" on the left. Note also the camouflage of the Zero on the right; if only the tail marking was visible...

Last but certainly not least, one of my most favourite Japanese aircraft photos...ever. One Mitsubishi G5M "Betty" bomber crashed during landing against a parked one and the ground crews unload their equipment. Note all the boxes, the bicycle, the "riyaka" and everything. This accident happened in Tinian's Hagoi Airfield later known to the US Forces as North Airfield from where "Enola Gay" and "Bockscar" flew their missions against Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively. The two "Betty" bombers belonged to the 705 Kokutai and the accident happened on July 10, 1942.

You've seen Japanese aircraft some with perfectly applied white surrounds to their hinomaru and some with very thin and not so well-done, right? Now you know why this happened. Note also the scaffold lifting the whole Mitsubishi G3M "Nell" bomber and the engine crane.

Shooting training set-up

While the camera and the viewers naturally focus on the scrambling pilots, note an interesting detail; the model of a four-engine US bomber on a pole in front of the building.

It's similar to this...

Also, note the plane without engine and tail in the background. It is an old A6M2 with folded wing tips. Together with the two poles, the whole set-up was used to train new, less-experienced pilots in aerial shooting, with the pilot sitting in the Zero cockpit aiming and someone moving the bomber model between the two poles simulating combat conditions.

Unlike the Army "Shoki" pilot we saw in a previous post, greeted with some beverages, this Navy Zero pilot just arriving at Rabaul's East airfield, a.k.a. Lakunai airfield in 1944, has first and foremost a couple ground crew members climbing beside the cockpit to ask him if he and the aircraft are unharmed.