By the end of the war, the Japanese were using any aircraft that they could find to use as kamikazes. As author Robert Stern points out in his fascinating book “Fire from the Sky”, this was the moment when the Japanese accidentally invented the stealth aircraft. They were forced to go right to the back of the disused hangar and dig out some of the oldest and most infrequently used training aircraft to use as kamikazes. These included the “Spruce” and “Willow” trainers, which were biplanes apparently made from bits of wood, canvas, knotted string and bits of old wallpaper. For this reason they did not show up on radar very much at all, something which puzzled the Americans enormously and which the Japanese never found out about.
Here is a “Willow” aka a Yokosuka K5Y :
And here is a “Spruce” aka a Tachikawa Ki 9 :
The Japanese used a variety of aircraft for kamikaze attacks. The single engined ones were mainly the naval “Zeke” or the army’s “Oscar”, the two often being misidentified. Here’s the “Zeke” aka the Mitsubishi A6M Zero:
And here is the “Oscar” aka the Nakajima Ki 43 :
Use was also made of the “Tony”, the “Frank” and the twin engined “Dinah”.
Here’s the “Tony” aka the Kawasaki Ki-61 Hien (Swallow). When it first came into service, Allied pilots thought they were Messerschmitt Bf 109s, perhaps built under licence.:
And here is a “Frank” aka the Nakajima Ki 84 Hayate. This photograph is by yours truly, taken at Hendon. Can you see the Mosquito, about to shoot it down?:
And this is my even more splendid photograph of a backlit “Dinah” aka Mitsubishi Ki-46 :
There was a welter of single engined torpedo bombers used by the Japanese as kamikaze planes. They included the “Jill” aka the Nakajima B6N Tenzan. “Tenzan” means “Heavenly Mountain”, and is under no circumstances ever to be used as a term of endearment for the woman in your life. Perhaps worth trying with the man, though:
The “Kate” was aka the Nakajima B5N. It seems to have been painted on occasion in the most vomit provoking luminous green ever used:
The “Judy” was aka the Yokosuka D4Y Suisei (Comet):
Perhaps the most frequent mount for the would-be suicide jockey was the Aichi “Val” or the Aichi D3A. This photograph is the one most frequently used:
I first saw it in the “Hippo Book of Aircraft of the Second World War” when I was nine or ten :
The list goes on. Twin engined bombers were mainly the “Betty” and the “Sally”. Here’s a “Betty” which the Japanese called the Mitsubishi G4M1 :
And this is a “Sally” or a Mitsubishi Ki 21. It was actually possible to cultivate a decent crop of tomato plants in the long greenhouse behind the cockpit :
That’s enough photographs for now. Other aircraft types to be used, but much less frequently, are listed below:
“Claude”, Mitsubishi A5M, carrier based fighter
“Frances”, Yokosuka P1Y, navy land-based bomber
“Hamp”, Mitsubishi A6M3, navy carrier fighter
“Irving”, Nakajima J1N, navy land reconnaissance aircraft
“Jake”, Aichi E13A, navy reconnaissance seaplane
“Myrt”, Nakajima C6, navy carrier reconnaissance aircraft
“Nate”, Nakajima Ki-27, army fighter
“Nick”, Kawasaki Ki-45, army two-seat fighter
“Pete”, Mitsubishi F1M, navy observation seaplane
“Sonia”, Mitsubishi Ki-51, army light/dive bomber
Here’s a “Pete”, but its very easy to find the rest on “Google Images” :
Next time…..the Last Kamikaze.
John Knifton 