Untitled Document

Profile 1: Early in our quest for information, we heard of a theory which asserted that the 56th Hikoh Sentai may have operated No. 5017 in the air defense role. If such a story were true, some unnamed aircraft painters of the 56th might have camouflaged and marked No. 5017 as you see in this first profile. Don Marsh based this scheme upon a documented paint and markings pattern found on a certain late-production Ki-61-II Kai assigned to the air unit. But the documented late-production plane had the new all-round vision cockpit cover with the cut-down rear fuselage, and therefore could not have been No. 5017, since it is an early-production plane with the traditional canopy which blends into the rear fuselage, as shown in this profile.

We found little support for a relationship between the plane and the air unit, as the circumstantial evidence we amassed all worked against the prospect that the plane ever served with the 56th. This notion quickly became a dead-end story when we observed that No. 5017 showed no evidence of ever having been painted in a camouflage scheme and then later stripped of its paint and markings by either the Japanese or the American occupation personnel. We also noticed that the 56th called Itami Air Base home at the end of the war. Consulting the map revealed that Itami AB was in the northwest suburbs of Osaka, about 250 miles from Fussa AB, where American troops found the plane at the end of the war.

One bit of the puzzle which would have explained how a Ki-61-II Kai of the 56th Sentai might have come to be in the Tokyo (Fussa) area at the end of the war proved to be a blank piece of the picture. We learned from well-known writer Koji Takaki that five pilots of the 56th, including the wartime unit commander, flew five Ki-61s from Itami to Oppama Airfield at Yokosuka on 1 November 1945 so that the planes could be transported to the United States for evaluation. Three of the planes were Ki-61-II kai aircraft. But we found no convincing documentation to show that one of these three was left behind in Japan to eventually become the only remaining Ki-61-II Kai in the entire world. These three had US Army Air Forces insignia on them, as required for flights of confiscated Japanese aircraft being moved by air to the embarkation point for shipment to the States. And these American markings, as well, worked against the possibility that No. 5017 was a plane from the 56th Hikoh Sentai. Furthermore, we fruitlessly sought a scenario to explain why the American forces might have moved a plane from Oppama to Fussa in the early months of the occupation when destruction of the remaining Japanese aircraft was a priority task and burning them in great heaps at the places where they were found was the order of the day.

The idea that the 56th Sentai once operated No. 5017 does not seem to be a widely held view among the interested parties we surveyed. But a few people we polled did express beliefs to that effect. When we pressed them to provide evidence or to give reasons for their opinions, we discovered that they had based their beliefs upon nothing more than the fact that the 56th had operated Ki-61-II Kai aircraft.

Profile 2: Considering the available circumstantial evidence, researchers Marsh and Long have concluded that Japanese army officials issued No. 5017 to the Army Air Technical Evaluation Department at Fussa Air Base for use in the Ki-61-II evaluation program. While in that service the plane had no camouflage or other exterior surface protection except for the antiglare paint on the top of the engine cowling. On these mostly bare surfaces, workers at the Kawasaki factory applied the usual nationality markings in the customary six positions, and either factory painters or the painters at Fussa had added a large red “17” to each side of the fin as an individual identification marking, this two-digit number having derived from the aircraft’s serial number. In this form, No. 5017 served out the remaining days of the Pacific War in the evaluation unit and ended up as a war prize for the personnel of the US occupation forces who took over the former test center at Fussa Air Base.

(Research Note: Fussa was a Japanese army air facility which lay on the Kanto Plain 28 miles northwest of Tokyo and was first known as Tama Army Airfield. To Allied intelligence personnel, Fussa was identified in mid 1945 as the “Showa N.W. A/F” since it rested a short distance northwest of the well-known Showa Aircraft Company’s airfield and since the Allies had not discovered its true name.)

The Japanese army had at least one other Ki-61-II Kai at the Fussa test center during the last months of the war. A chance photograph proves it and serves to authenticate the paint and markings pattern associated with No. 5017. We owe thanks to the unidentified Japanese photographer who snapped a full-profile picture of the other plane at Fussa at some time during 1945 before the end of hostilities. The second plane was an even earlier example, as indicated by its serial number, 5010. The workers at the Kawasaki Aircraft Company completed it as the 2nd Ki-61-II Kai after having built eight of the unfit Ki-61-IIs and one (the first) Ki-61-II Kai. This made No. 5010 the tenth plane produced in the improved series. No. 5017 was the 17th such aircraft. These facts explain the serial numbers, 5010 and 5017, which were concocted simply by adding the constructor’s numbers 10 and 17 to a base number of 5000.

How did 5017 survive and 5010 did not? Well, the facts of the matter are not known. But it is reasonable to think that the occupation troops who had the job of disposing of the remaining Japanese aircraft at the end of the war somehow missed No. 5017 or were instructed to set it aside for a planned souvenir display. Consequently, it was not destroyed with the thousands of other Japanese warplanes scattered at airfields around Japan, most of them being destroyed within months of the surrender.

(Research Note: Oddly, the old enemy aircraft at Fussa were not completely destroyed until sometime in the mid 1950s, according to the testimony of a man who was there. This man reports that a fenced-off salvage yard of smashed Japanese army planes held out at the northwest end of Fussa’s runway until then. Wild speculation might have it that the remains of Ki-61-II Kai No. 5010 were there. But it is a sure bet that No. 5017 was never there. The story about the boneyard comes to us from Don Cooper (http://www.yokotaairbase.net/ ), who as an Airman First Class was stationed there in 1956 and tried to get access to the dump for the purpose of collecting souvenirs, but was turned away by guards.)

At Fussa, No. 5017 may have been saved from destruction by having been set aside for possible shipment to the United States. If this were the case, speculative though it is, technicians in charge of making the plane serviceable for shipment to the States may have soon discovered that the Ha 140 engine with which this example was equipped could not be made flight-worthy. Thus, its shipment to the U.S. would not have taken place, and since the time for the general destruction of the remaining aircraft had passed, someone in command at Fussa AB decided that this complete and undamaged plane would make a fitting trophy for display in front of the base operations building at the former Japanese airfield.

US occupation personnel moved the colorful No. 5017 with its metallic luster, its bright red Hinomaru insignia, its striking yellow wing leading edges, and its dazzling red tail number to a position on the grassed area near the two-story frame building with the small observation copula that was being used by the new American owners as the base operations facility, the same use to which the Japanese had put the building, calling it the “stand-by post” (an alert or ready room). The movers wrestled the aircraft to the cleared ground at the northeast corner of the building, swinging its nose eastward toward the flight line and fashioning beneath it a circular display place of cleared and mulched ground ringed by smooth round stones—all reminiscent of a garden plot.

No. 5017 became a possession of the American occupation forces on 8 September 1945 when a small echelon of the 1st Cavalry Division occupied the field and set up a security guard schedule. A full company from the 164th Infantry Division soon followed. The first American air unit arrived on 11 September. A vanguard force of the 2nd Combat Cargo Group flew in on that day. Colonel William J. Bell, commanding the group, soon became the first base commander, serving in that capacity until December 1945. The time frame makes it likely that Col. Bell oversaw the saving of a few captured Japanese aircraft from among the nearly 280 such craft seized when American troops occupied Fussa, the field that was within a year to be known officially as Yokota Air Base under American administration.

Photographic evidence tells us that at least two planes escaped the wreckers at Yokota in this manner: the Ki-61-II Kai of our yarn and a Ki-115 Tsurugi suicide craft. Occupation personnel set both planes up as displays near the base operations building. As a display aircraft, No. 5017 looked initially as it does in Don Marsh’s Profile No. 2. At that time, the plane was complete with the exception of some small fairing plates around the engine exhausts. However, sometime later, during its "Red 17" incarnation, the upper middle cowling panel went missing (shown in the vignette that accompanies Profile 2) and subsequently was only crudely replaced by plain sheet aluminum in its next incarnation (Profile 3).

(Research Note: Koku-Fan Monthly for June 1973 credits the earliest photographs of the Tony at Fussa/Yokota to a Mr. C. M. Daniels. He snapped the pictures of the plane when it was displayed in front of the operations building.)

Profile 3: Photographic evidence also proves that for unexplained reasons American troops moved the Ki-61-II Kai, referred to simply as “the Tony,” to two other locations on the base before it left there for good. One place was the grassed yard in front of a two-story frame barracks building. This structure was two blocks west of the old Japanese headquarters building. The HQ building was an oddly shaped structure with two floors on the west end and three floors with bay windows on the east end. The Japanese constructors sited it just off the flight line behind the operations building.

We have also learned from the testimony of James Landrum, who was a young U.S. Air Force enlisted man at the time, that in 1952 the aircraft was in front of the new base gym at Yokota. American personnel moved the Ki-61 some distance in order to display it at the new gymnasium building, which was more centrally located on the base.

While the plane was in these several locations, certain persons--some known, some unknown--snapped official and unofficial photographs of the Tony that at first looked as it does in Profile No. 2, then, after 1947, as it does in Profile No. 3. Some of the photos have appeared in issues of Bunrindo Company’s “Famous Airplanes of the World,” such as No. 4 of 1967, No. 98 of 1978, and No. 17 of 1989. Other photos of the Tony in residence at Yokota AB are in private hands, but are being shared with the public on Internet websites; the last in this list also containing a chronology of events in the life of Tony No. 5017 from a Japanese researcher, but in the Japanese language only:

http://home.att.net/~myron.sestak/korea/yokota.html
http://home.interlink.or.jp/~mabe/Eindex.htm
http://home.interlink.or.jp/~mabe/sub2-2.htm
http://www.yokotaairbase.net/YokotaHistoryDocument.htm
http://bobp31.homestead.com/YOKOTA_AB_JAPAN.html
http://www.chijihonbu.metro.tokyo.jp/kiti/english/eyokota.htm (this link may or may not work)
http://www.b-29s-over-korea.com/wayland_mayo/mayoscans/03.01jptony.jpg
http://homepage3.nifty.com/atj/sakusaku/3_2.htm
http://ksa.axisz.jp/a8703-2Hien.htm

The official reason for U.S. personnel giving the plane the markings of a USAF aircraft has not come to light, as yet. One sketchy theory contends that a military official ordered it, saying that the former Japanese planes should be marked as American aircraft so that they would be less conspicuous, less offensive to certain persons, or else they should be removed and salvaged.

The people on the scene seem to have found that it was more expedient to put USAF insignia on the two Japanese aircraft rather than to dispose of them. In short order, anonymous painters did the job on the Tony, starting with the covering of the Japanese insignia and tail numbers with silver paint and decalcomania. Their thoroughness dictated the inclusion of a “U.S. Air Force” marking and radio call numbers. The decorators strung these “brands” across the fin and rudder on each side of the vertical tail. They put the national star insignia in the traditional four places; and since the star insignia had the red horizontal stripes on the bars, researchers can place the application date to a time after January 16, 1947, which is the date on the amendment to Specification AN-I-9b that required American military aircraft to carry the red stripes.

(Research Note: The James Gates Internet photos (one of the links listed above) show that he snapped his 1947 pictures before the USAF markings were put on. The date on specification AN-I-9b puts an early limit to the task, but does not draw the line on an upper limit, which could have been any time between 1947 and 1952, according to the available evidence collected thus far.)

While all of this decorating was going on, certain personnel did some maintenance work on the Tony. It is even possible that some certain parties gave some thought to making the aircraft flyable. Pictures show that maintenance workers fashioned a cover to replace the missing cowling piece (the original probably misappropriated as a souvenir) and also worked on the propeller and spinner, leaving the rear base plate of the spinner unpainted and repositioning the prop so that a single blade pointed earthward.

Some uncertainty surrounds the American tail number. In all likelihood, the painters snatched the radio call numbers from out of thin air. No record of such a number has yet been found in official documents. Researchers and modelers will appreciate the news that at some point in time--recorded but undated by a photograph--the left vertical tail surface carried only the part of the markings that were on the fin, the rest having been obliterated presumably by a new application of dope to the fabric rudder. But the original markings were complete on the left and right sides: US AIR FORCE positioned over 0022111; both were stenciled applications in two different sizes. Good photographs of the left and right sides of the plane while in U.S. markings may be seen in “Famous Airplanes of the World,” Issue No. 4, dated April 1967. It is the only source we’ve found that shows the full right side of the plane while in American insignia.

Profile 4: Newspapers and aviation journals of the time reported that in a gesture of goodwill the United States Air Force returned No. 5017 to the Japanese people in 1953. The exact date isn’t known. Whatever date it was, and whatever ceremonies accompanied the handing over, civilian representatives of the Japan Aeronautic Association (Nippon Kohkuh Kyohkai) repossessed No. 5017 and had it moved to Hibiya Park in Tokyo near the Imperial Palace for display, most probably with the aid of USAF personnel with a crane and a flatbed truck and trailer.

(Research Note: The first post-war aviation day was observed on September 30, 1953. The turning-over of 5017 may have coincided with that event. In a June 2002 posting on the j-aircraft website, contributor Hiroyuki TAKEUCHI endorsed the 1953 date and said that the plane made appearances at various fairs and events around Japan after that date. Mr. Hiroyuki NAGASHIMA, who is in charge of cultural properties of the Japan Aeronautic Association (JAA), has confirmed to us that these activities did take place. The JAA was reestablished after the war on October 1, 1952. The JAA rejoined the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) in June, 1953. These are civilian establishments which you may read about on their websites: http://www.aero.or.jp/ for the JAA and http://www.fai.org/about/ for the FAI.)

Unfortunately, the move to Hibiya Park caused some damage to the Ki-61. Not only did the movers cause a few punctures in the rudder fabric, but, worst of all, they cut off the outer wing sections and placed a cable sling under the forward fuselage which buckled several skin plates under the rear of the nose section and twisted and crumpled part of the engine air intake scoop on the left side of the cowling. The new owners, the JAA, put the plane on display at the park without repairing these wounds. A photographer took some pictures during the time of its display in Tokyo that show the extent of damage. One of these pictures appears on page 49 of “Famous Airplanes of the World,” No. 4 of 1967. The late Richard Bueschel printed three others in his “Kawasaki Ki-61 Hein in Japanese Army Air Force Service,” a Schiffer Military History Book published in 1996 (pages 43 and 48). A fifth picture is in Issue No. 263 by the Model Art Co., Ltd., December 1985, page 18.

Before the plane went on display at Hibiya Park, the new Japanese owners had the USAF markings removed and Japanese national insignia put on. These new Hinomaru were larger than they should have been, as depicted in Don Marsh’s Profile 4. Aside from reapplying the national markings, the exhibitors did no other repainting. The plane still sported natural metal outer surfaces with only the spinner, the anti-glare panel, the yellow wing leading edges, and the Hinomaru to alleviate the gray metallic appearance. The rehabilitators failed to reapply the tail marking, but the faint suggestion of the number 17 can be picked out on each side of the fin in the black-and-white pictures that the unknown photographer snapped at Hibiya Park.

Profile 5: Were it not for a completely unrelated event which happened in the unincorporated U.S. territory of Guam in 1962, Ki-61-II Kai No. 5017 might have continued to languish on the “carnival” tour around Japan in its damaged condition. But fate took a hand when unnamed persons discovered the remains of a World War Two Japanese navy fighter in a swamp not far from the U.S. Naval Air Station at Guam’s capital city, Agana. The governments of Guam and the U.S. eventually returned the navy fighter, a Type Zero Carrier-Based Fighter, to the government of Japan, and that event gave a new lease on life to old No. 5017.

(Research Note: Read about the recovery of the Zero Fighter in text-and-photo articles by Roy Wiggs on the j-aircraft and pacific-wrecks websites below by clicking on the listed links.)

http://www.j-aircraft.com/relics/roy_wiggs/guam_zero.htm
http://www.pacificwrecks.com/people/visitors/wiggs.html
http://www.pacificwrecks.com/provinces/japan_hamamatsu.html

Searchers found the “Swamp Zero” in March 1962 and an impromptu recovery team removed it to open storage on NAS Agana shortly thereafter. Early on, officials gave some thought to keeping the plane as a display memento of the war. But in July 1963 the authorities decided to return the fighter to Japan, following a visit from a group of Japanese journalists who apparently expressed great interest in having the plane displayed in Japan.

Aviation writer and researcher Osamu Tagaya, translating and paraphrasing from small articles he had read in the March, April, and December 1964 and January 1965 issues of Koku-Fan Magazine, fills us in on how the Zero got back to Japan:

“The return was originally scheduled for the beginning of December 1963, but was delayed until January 1964. A C-130 of TAC (No. 50029) out of Langley AFB, Virginia piloted by a Capt. Brady was detailed to transport the Zero (Rei-sen Model 52 Ko c/n 4685) from Guam to Japan. The C-130 flew to Guam via Hawaii. With the Zero on board, the transport left Guam on January 16, 1964, and landed approx. 8 hours later at Tachikawa AFB at 1650 hrs on the same day. Necessary paperwork was completed at Tachikawa and two days later, on January 18 at 0855, the C-130 took off from Tachikawa and arrived at JASDF's Gifu AFB (ex-IJAAF Kagamigahara AB) at 0955. (Consequently, most general articles give date of arrival of the Zero as January 17.)”

Japanese authorities housed the Zero in Repair Hangar No. 2 at Gifu. Military technicians and representatives from the Mitsubishi Aircraft Company poured time, effort, and money into the restoration project for nearly a year to be ready for an unveiling during the 1964 observance of the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF).

Also scheduled to participate in the festivities was the Ki-61-II Kai that America had returned to the JAA a decade earlier. But the Tony was in sad shape after ten years on the display circuit. Much work would have to be done to make it a worthy example of WWII Japanese airpower so that it could proudly take a place alongside the Zero Fighter from Guam. To that end, a restoration crew began work on the Tony in 1963, even before the return of the Guam Zero to Japan.

The repair work gave the Tony a new look. The damaged air scoop got the needed repairs by application of putty and the crumpled cowling plates under the nose got covered over by an improvised metal sheet, which, incidentally, has been depicted in some later technical drawings as an authentic Ki-61-II Kai configuration. All of the fabric control surfaces got new coverings. To cap all of this work, technicians skillfully fabricated a good-looking cowling piece with proper latches to replace the simple rectangular bit of sheet metal that the Americans had screwed on over the gaping hole left by the missing one. The replacement cowling piece is not completely authentic, however, failing as it does to exhibit the gun ventilation ports of the original installation.

When all of the metal and fabric work had been completed, painters applied a thick coat of light gray paint over the entire airframe, including the interior walls of the cockpit. They gave the spinner a brilliant red coating, reconstituted the yellow leading edge panels, reapplied the Hinomaru in the proper sizes, and marked off some no-step areas over the flaps on the main wings. They could see the remains of the tail number and decided to put that on again, but this time in black paint. Departing from authenticity in another respect, the refurbishsers cut a stencil and applied an unofficial version of the wartime designation of the plane to each side of the fuselage under the horizontal tail pieces.

The new finish was pleasant enough, and undoubtedly protective, but at the expense of authenticity. Don Marsh illustrates the outcome of all of this work in Profile No. 5. Looking this way, the Ki-61-II Kai shared the stage with the Guam Zero on public display at JASDF Iruma AB on November 3, 1964, during the anniversary observances.

Profile 6: After the celebrations, officials sent the Zero Fighter to JASDF Hamamatsu South AB for storage (http://www.warbirdpix.com/hama11.htm), and the JAA sent the Tony to JASDF Gifu AB for the same purpose. The trail turns a little cold at this point, probably because nothing much happened for years. But we have surmised that the owners of the two planes designated the persons in charge of these two air facilities as custodians and the air bases as home bases for the two old World War II warbirds.

Sometime in the intervening years between 1964 and the end of 1982, the authorities at Gifu AB decided to give the Tony yet another going-over, presumably with the approval of the JAA. Officials commissioned a new paint job. This time they chose to illustrate an aircraft from the famous 244th Hikoh Sentai (a 244th website is at http://www5b.biglobe.ne.jp/~s244f/index.htm), rather than maintain the mostly authentic scheme of a plane assigned to the test center at Fussa. Don Marsh shows us in Profile No. 6 how the painters fulfilled the order. In this scheme, the plane represents a plausible finish for an aircraft of the 244th, but does not represent an actual individual and does not have a particularly accurate tail marking. To date, no convincing documentation supports the contention that the 244th ever operated a Ki-61-II Kai. In departing from the authentic scheme of No. 5017, the authorities sought to commend a famous fighter unit and its wartime personnel who fought in defense of Tokyo against the American B-29s of the 20th Air Force by conventional attacks and by ramming attacks.

(Research Note: Osprey Aviation Elite 5, B-29 Hunters of the JAAF, by Koji Takaki and Henry Sakaida is a good place to start a study of the Japanese Army Air Force’s attempts to combat America’s strategic bombing campaign. The book is copyright 2000 by Osprey Publishing Limited, ISBN 1 84176 161 3.)

At one time, and while it was cloaked in the scheme shown in Profile 6, Tony 5017 hung from the ceiling of a storage building, as recorded by the lens of an unknown photographer’s camera. Unnamed persons had removed the landing gear legs and wheels by the time these pictures were made, perhaps either for repair work or, more likely, to reduce the storage space required to house the plane. The location of this suspended storage has not been discovered. Gifu AB might have been the place of this lofty storage space, but just as likely, it may have been some undisclosed place controlled by the man who was to give the plane its next and final paint job, a man named NAKANO. Mr. NAGASHIMA has told us that Mr. NAKANO was not a member of the JAA and therefore must have been commissioned by officials of the museum in which the plane would find its final resting place.</p>

Profile 7: Don Marsh’s Profile No. 7 presents his interpretation of the scheme that No. 5017 now wears while on display in its honored place in the Chiran Tokkoh Heiwa Kaikan (Chiran Special Attack Peace Assembly Hall) in Japan. The artwork owns much to his expertise in gleaning details from the minimum views of this aircraft thus far available—the official and unofficial ones. In preparing this drawing, Don made use of six photographs of the plane to produce the results you see in the finished painting. Chris Cowx, a frequent visitor to the j-aircraft website, contributed two original color photographs to the effort. In addition, Don also had access to the color photograph of the plane that appears in Peter Fearis’ book “The Samurai’s Wings.” The photograph on the Chiran Museum’s Internet website supplemented the others. A fifth photo of unknown Japanese origin that Don found on the Internet rounded out the color sources. Supplementing these color views was one black-and-white picture from the book "Broken Wings of the Samurai,” by Robert C. Mikesh.

One of Don’s biggest problems was in determining the layout of the blotch pattern in the face of not having all-around-the-clock views. To do this, he produced an “Accuracy Rating Map” on which he drew the various elements of the blotch camouflage pattern and divided them into four weighted areas according to the degree of guesswork to which he resorted.

The artist, in his own words, now gives us a feel for the problems of assessing the colors and markings of the plane from the few photos he had. Don began by saying that the first impression one gets when taking an initial look at the plane is the notion that the base coat of paint is a very thick white coating that seems to encapsulate the airframe in a cocoon-like wrapper. I asked Don what he thought of the basic finish of the Chiran Tony:

"I believe the base color is a VERY pale gray, and I have depicted it that way in my profile. Even though it appears to be white in all the photos, when you compare the base color to the white combat band around the rear of the fuselage, there is a definite distinction between the two. While the two are very close in color, the band is a brighter, truer white. Against this band, to my eye, the base color appears to have a slight bluish-putty gray tint. The thick appearance of the base coating might well be due to Mr. NAKANO’s use of body putty which I believe would have to be covered with a deep, automobile-like finish."

In giving his opinion of the camouflage, Don called the hard-edged, blotch mottle scheme something "more reminiscent of some paint jobs found on Ki-45s, such as on the Nicks of 4th Hikoh Sentai, than of a Tony." He continued:

"While Ki-61s from the 244th did have many soft-edged, air-gun applied patterns similar to this; I find the execution of the scheme on the Chiran Tony to be historically unconvincing and cartoon-like. I see the color as a very dark green, perhaps a black green. While we know the pitfalls of determining color in photographs, the best color photos I’ve seen appear to show a slight hint of blue in the dark green, making me think of an IJN green, rather than an IJA green."

As for the tail markings, the analytical artist in Don had this response to my question about its authenticity:
"I think the representation of the 244th Hikoh Sentai tail marking is an accurate depiction. I have cataloged four variations used on Ki-61 aircraft, and the NAKANO marking fit one of them. I did wonder whether the crossbar on the “4” at the top of the marking was angled or horizontal with the reference line of the aircraft. I can’t tell from the poor reference images I have. In fact, I’ve just revised my art for this profile yet again. I was portraying the crossbar on the “4” as angled rather than horizontal. But the more I looked at my photos, the more I thought that what I was seeing was caused by photographic parallax combined with poor photo reproductions. So I have changed this detail back to horizontal, which is historically correct. The bottom line is that, in my opinion, the Chiran Tony sports an accurate reproduction of the 244th tail device."

My final questions to Don asked about the trim, to which he replied that “the prop tips were improperly painted in the American fashion rather the Japanese banded style.” He also commented on the black color of the longitudinal fuselage stripe and the bright yellow wing leading edges which he regarded as “contrary to the more accurate golden yellow.”

Even with these obvious flaws, the Tony makes an impressive central attraction at the Chiran Museum, which at the start of this article we loosely—but officially--called the Peace Museum for Kamikaze Pilots. The Tony of our story resides there today and is unlikely to ever be moved from its peaceful repose at that location. The plane with its new paint job and the engine on a stand behind it may be seen in the official photo on the museum’s website.

Photo Credit: Heiwakaikan Website, Chiran Town, Kagoshima, Japan

That appealing website photo is one of only a few official portraits issued of the plane since its installation at the Chiran Museum, and nearly all of them have been taken from the left front viewpoint. Most museums in Japan discourage photography by the general public, and this rule has brought on a shortage of photo documentation, as in the case of the Chiran Tony. This shortage is exacerbated by the fact that the museum, itself, has not circulated any official photos showing a side view or a view from the rear, let alone complete photo coverage all around the compass."

But it would appear that the general prohibition against photography is not strictly enforced or was not imposed at Chiran, for when Chris Cowx visited the museum in December 1997, he was able to take pictures, later saying the following about the occasion:
"I snapped the photos without any special permission; however, it was not forbidden to take photos. I did it quite openly. It would seem to me that as long as the photos are not being published for money that there should be no problem."

Chris Cowx’s impression of the Chiran Tony confirms Don Marsh’s view of the plane. In an e-mail letter to Jim Long, Chris said that:
"When it comes to the Ki-61-II at Chiran I must confess that I did not pay it the attention that it deserved. It may be indicative of its overall appearance to say that I thought it was a replica. There is an Oscar replica there as well and the two seemed to be about on par for realism. The white overall paint scheme and the overly bright green blotches and propeller colors did not help to convey a feeling of authenticity. I don't recall the engine being on display, though there were several small models of aircraft that were involved in special attacks on display in front of it. Come to think of it, the engine exhaust stacks may have seemed fake to me and likely contributed to the overall illusory appearance of the plane. I recall that it looked too clean, too smooth, and that some of the smaller details were not well done. I apologize for being a bit vague but I was actually far more interested in the Frank on display along with the Zeke wreck."

THE FINAL REDOUBT

The Lowdown on the Chiran Peace Museum

The museum currently has three Japanese planes on display: the Tony of our narrative, a complete Ki-84 in good condition, and the badly decomposed remains of a Zero Fighter. In addition, museum administrators acquired and have placed on exhibition an eight-tenths scale model of a Type 1 Fighter (Hayabusa). Chiran, where the museum is located, is a small town (cho) in southern Japan that once had an army airfield which figured prominently in Japan’s frantic Tokkohtai (special attack corps) campaign in the last months of the war, especially during the fighting for Okinawa.

(Research Note: The term Tokkohtai abbreviates tokubetsu kohgekitai. The term “Peace Museum for Kamikaze Pilots” is the officially recognized English version of the museum’s name, but is not a faithful translation of Tokkoh Heiwa Kaikan. Visit the museum’s website at http://www.town.chiran.kagoshima.jp/touristinfo/heiwakaikan/ . There you will find one English-language page, a map of the area, and several other pages that explain the exhibits in Japanese and serve up photos of the museum and the airplane exhibits, including the aforementioned picture of the Chiran Tony.)

The museum began modestly enough with the construction of a temple (Kannon-doh) to a Buddhist goddess, which the planners hoped would eventually become a gathering place for people who wanted to commemorate the fallen tokkoh pilots. The aim was to bring a measure of spiritual consolation to the families and others who mourned and wish to venerate the long-departed pilots who flew from the Chiran Air Base, never to return. The nubbin of a museum “opened its doors” for the first time in 1955 with the exhibition of a statue of the goddess of mercy (Kannon), inside of which the names of many of the 1,036 airmen estimated to have departed from “tokkoh” air bases on one-way missions were written on paper.

News reports have cited a woman named Tome TORIHAMA as the early guiding force behind this tribute to the tokkoh pilots. She was the proprietor of a small restaurant in Chiran Cho called the Tomiya Shokudoh (here freely translated as “Fortune House Dining Hall”) which many of the doomed pilots frequented, but only with the express permission of officials of the Japanese army. She became a mother figure to them and helped them in their final days: providing meals, smuggling letters and other writings, giving them a mother’s love, that sort of thing. Lisa Takeuchi Cullen of Time Asia wrote a story about the woman who ran the favored eatery and who the pilots called “Mom,” and who the Japanese press of more recent times has called the “Kamikaze Mom.”

(Research Note: One reference source (1995) reports that the title was tokkoh obasan, meaning “special attack aunt.” A 1969 reference used the term tokkoh baba, baba meaning old woman or grandmother (she was 42 at the time). And yet another source introduced the term Okaasan, meaning “mother” or “mama.” This last one is in a 1994/1995 extended essay by Mako SASAKI entitled “Who Became Kamikaze Pilots and How Did They Feel Towards Their Suicide Mission.” It seems likely that the young pilots used all of these terms at one time or another. Read the SASAKI essay at http://www.tcr.org/kamikaze.html. And read the Time Asia story at this link: http://www.time.com/time/asia/magazine/article/0,13673,501020902-344136,00.html .)

Tome TORIHAMA worked hard after the war to keep the memory of the brave pilots she befriended alive by relating stories about their final days to anyone who would listen and showing mementos left by them. This she did in the face of feelings of shame and condemnation for the acts of the tokkoh pilots and of remorse for the war in general on the part of the postwar Japanese population which just wanted to forget and try to recover from the great disaster. Her efforts were recognized on September 28, 1955, when the Kannon-doh went up at the site of the former air base, largely through the donations of the citizens of Chiran town and the urgings and contributions of veterans of the war, some of them former army generals and navy admirals who participated in the tokkohtai effort.

The site attracted little attention at first, but eventually a true museum came into being on April 1, 1975. It has grown steadily since then, with a new and expanded version of the museum opening February 1, 1985, and today the museum--its many buildings, gardens, and recreational facilities--and its exhibits attract nearly a million visitors annually. Tome TORIHAMA lived until 1992, long enough to see some of the fruits of her quest to honor the sacrifices of the tokkoh pilots. She and the museum have become even more famous after her death. The newspapers played up the story and dubbed her the “Kamikaze Mom.”

But, lest you think that Tome TORIHAMA single-handedly brought the museum into being, we hasten to explain that the opposite is true: many, many people helped establish the museum through donations of monies, artifacts, mementos, photographs, works of art, and other items from the war, and especially through the donation or the lending of actual World War Two aircraft, the display of which goes a long way toward making the museum the attraction it is today for the Japanese aircraft enthusiast.

The number of aircraft on display has increased over the years as the museum itself has grown. Under the auspices of the Mayor of Chiran and a museum director from Chiran town hall (currently Mr. Morihiko ORITA), local planners and laborers put on display in 1980 the remains of the Zero Fighter they had salvaged from the waters near Teuchi harbor in Koshikijima near Akune, Kagoshima. They added No. 5017, the Ki-61-II Kai, in 1987 after it received yet another paint job and a final rehabilitation. And to cap this expansion off in style, the museum acquired in 1997 the Type 4 Fighter (Hayate) that had once been the captured property of the U.S. government and, subsequently, the private property of the Planes of Fame Air Museum in California, and later the private property of aviator Don Lykins, before being returned to Japan in 1973.

(Research Note: The Planes of Fame Air Museum sold the Hayate to Don Lykins in the early 1970s to raise capital. Lykins soon realized that the cost of maintaining such an aircraft was prohibitive, and he put it up for sale. Mr. Morinao GOKAN of the Japan Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association purchased the plane in 1973 and returned it to Japan where it made a few flights and then fell into inactivity. It changed hands again in 1980 when Mr. GOKAN passed away. The new owners neglected the plane for a decade or more until Chiran officials acquired it in the mid-1990s.)

According to testimony of Mr. Takeshi KAWATOKO, a member of the staff at the Peace Museum, the organization acquired No. 5017 from the Japan Aeronautic Association by a rental agreement which permitted the museum to commission Mr. NAKANO to repaint the plane in new and vibrant markings, and to make such other repairs as deemed necessary to preserve the aircraft. His repair work included removing the Ha 140 engine to lift this burden from the 40-year-old airframe and fixing up the cowling and exhaust stacks to make it appear that the engine was still installed. Mr. NAKANO also resorted to applying body putty to smooth the aged, dented, and rippled airframe. The Ha 140 engine from No. 5017 is on separate display behind the left main wing of the Ki-61-II Kai in the main hall at the Chiran Museum.

Mr. NAKANO, who is a glider instructor in Tokyo, completed his work in 1987, and the refurbished and repainted Tony went on display that year with the fanfare due a now-recognized highly valuable and important new artifact. It was nothing if not beautiful. NAKANO chose a generic scheme for the Chiran Ki-61, representing, as before, the famous 244th Hikoh Sentai. Even though general in nature, the current markings bear a striking resemblance to those once sported by the 244’s last commanding officer, Captain Teruhiko KOBAYASHI, on several of his Ki-61-I aircraft. Though similar, they are in fact not the markings of one of the planes of the commander. Instead, Mr. NAKANO chose markings to avoid representing the aircraft of any particular pilot of the 244th so as to pay tribute to all who suffered certain death for the nation.

Profile 8: Don’s final profile in this series offers technical and aesthetic contrasts between a Ki-61-I Hei and the Ki-61-II Kai of the Chiran Museum. The markings on the plane in this illustration specifically portray one of Kobayashi’s early mounts. The 244th Sentai commander flew this aircraft in early 1945, possibly as his first favorite aircraft after attaining sentai leadership. A keen eye will notice the significant differences and similarities between this aircraft and the surviving Chiran Tony.

THE CONNECTION
The 244th Hikoh Sentai and the Tokkohtai Campaign
At first blush, it might seem that NAKANO’s choice of unit markings and the museum’s decision to display a Ki-61 were ill-advised selections and unrepresentative of the Tokkohtai campaign. True, a handful of sentai-size units organized kamikaze attacks under their own designations, but the 244th was not among them. Thus no direct connection on a unit basis may be drawn between the Tony-flying 244th and the Kamikaze effort. Furthermore, the fighter that most represents the suicide campaign in terms of numbers expended is the Oscar, not the Tony. Records show that about 260 Oscars went out on Kamikaze missions, while only about 100 Tonys got the call.

Knowing this, some readers might leap to the conclusion that the 244th Hikoh Sentai had little to do with the Tokkoh campaign. After all, wasn’t the 244th a crack fighter unit that performed the vital mission of intercepting B-29 raids over the nation’s capital city?

So, what is the connection, if any? Well, primarily the link is on an individual human basis. A number of flight personnel from the 244th volunteered for suicide missions using Oscar aircraft that were not part of the 244th regular establishment. Individual 244th fliers--filled with a sense of honor, duty, and patriotism--joined these small Tokkohtai organizations piecemeal, and in that way represented the 244th.

One other link binds the 244th to the Tokkohtai operations and the Chiran Air Base. Elements of the 244th transferred to Chiran AB in May 1945 for two months to provide air defense for the base and escort missions for the departing Tokkohtai flights. By this time the unit had reequipped with the Type 5 Fighter (Ki-100), still using the same unit tail insignia that had graced the tails of their Ki-61 aircraft, the symbols thus becoming a familiar sight around the Chiran Air Base.

In looking back to see how it all came together, we find that the Japanese army established the 244th Hikoh Sentai by redesignating the 144th Hikoh Sentai on 15 April 1942. The 144th had been a small homeland fighter unit consisting of two chutai that totaled 19 planes (Type 97 Fighter, Ki-27) under the 17th Hikohdan (air brigade) headquarters, which in turn was directly attached to army headquarters in Tokyo. The unit became increasingly important after the Doolittle Raid of 18 April 1942, and with its reestablishment as the 244th, it became a 3-chutai air-defense unit operating out of Chofu Air Base just west of Tokyo, under the new 10th Hikoh Shidan (air division) as of May 1944.

Until the B-29 attacks on the industrial areas around Tokyo and Nagoya started in November of 1944, the men of the 244th Sentai had little to do other than train, maintain, patrol, and prepare for the coming battle. Among other exercises, pilots conducted mock high-altitude interceptions--testing and adjusting their aircraft to get the maximum performance out of men, oxygen systems, and planes--and, in the process, learned that many of their best planes with full loads of fuel, armament, and protection could scarcely reach the altitudes inhabited by the American Superfortress.

By necessity, these training activities eventually included preparations for ramming attacks. Such a method of attack against B-29s was nothing new in November of 1944. The first one happened back in late August when enlisted pilot Shigeo NOBE of the 4th Hikoh Sentai intentionally sliced into a B-29 which was menacing the steel factories at Yahata, Fukouka Prefecture, Kyushu, from bases in China. Other attacks of this kind followed when individual pilots decided it was the only way to bring success.

But then on November 7, 1944, the officer commanding the 10th Hikoh Shidan made ramming a matter of policy by asking the men of the units under his command to form ramming attack flights especially to oppose the B-29s at high altitude. They were to use aircraft stripped of their armament and protective systems in order to attain the needed altitudes. The weapon would be controlled collision.

The units assigned to the 10th included the 244th Hikoh Sentai. Following orders, then, Captain Takashi FUJITA, commanding the 244th at the time, took the necessary steps to begin organizing a ramming flight nicknamed Hagakure-Tai. Selected to lead this daring-do attack unit was 1st Lt. Tohru SHINOMIYA, who would eventually loose his life as a Tokkohtai pilot in the contest for Okinawa, but not before he became famous by scoring a victory using the ramming attack and living to tell the tale.

(Research Note: Koji Takaki and Henry Sakaida, in their book B-29 Hunters of the JAAF, first mentioned two of the nicknames of the elements of the 244th. Hagakure-Tai was the name chosen for the ramming attack unit (misprinted in their book as Hagure-Tai in the photo caption on page 49). The authors mention the nickname of the 2nd Chutai on page 85, bottom paragraph: Toppu. The 1st Chutai was called Soyokaze and the 3rd Chutai was known as Mikazuki. In their e-mail to Jim Long, authors Takaki and Sakaida welcomed the opportunity to correct the typographical error and to offer this clarification: “On 3 December 1944, 244th claimed 6 B-29s destroyed and 3 of them were rammed down by Hagakure pilots: Shinomiya, Nakano and Itagaki. The existence of the ramming unit had been kept confidential until then, but it was officially disclosed in the combat-result announcement and officially named "Shinten Seiku Tai" (Shinten Intercept Unit) by the Defense GHQ.”)

It might be argued that ramming attacks were not true suicide activities and do not qualify for inclusion in the history of the Tokkohtai effort because death was not certain. The exploits of SHINOMIYA and several others demonstrate this fact. SHINOMIYA attacked a B-29 on December 3, 1944, and brought himself and his damaged plane home. Another 244th man, Masao ITAGAKI, performed a similar feat on the same occasion, but had to parachute from his damaged fighter. A third pilot, NAKANO, of the Hagakure-Tai of the 244th got another B-29 and crash landed his stripped-down Ki-61 in a field.

But these pilots gained no reprieve for their successes in this dangerous work. They remained members of the deadly ramming unit, and would until they were wounded so badly that they could no longer fly or were killed. They were doomed men, and, therefore, they should be counted among the ranks of those who were going to a certain death as Tokkohtai pilots.

November was not only a big month in homeland air defense, but also for the fighting forces in the southern regions of the shrinking Empire. Allied forces had a grip on the island of Leyte and would soon be menacing Luzon and Manila in the Philippines. To combat the Allied fleets in Philippine waters, beginning in November, the 10th Hikoh Shidan formed several genuine special attack units worthy of the name and sent them south against Allied ships operating there. These units were constituted as numbered Hakkohtai, meaning “the eight directions” and referring to “the whole world.” The 10th Hikoh Shidan formed twelve such units between 6 and 30 November 1944, all using Oscars, Lilys, and Nicks and all making their ways to the Philippines and performing their deadly missions by December 24.

On behalf of the 244th Hikoh Sentai, Sergeant Shigeru KUROISHIKAWA stood among the twelve pilots forming the 4th Hakkohtai. The unit, formed on 6 November and allotted 12 Oscars, arrived in the Philippines on 2 December, with seven of the pilots, including Sergeant KUROISHIKAWA, making crash dives in the Ormoc Bay area on December 7th.

If death wasn’t certain for 1st Lt. Tohru SHINOMIYA as a ramming-attack pilot in the 244th, it became assured on December 5, 1944, when he and five other 244th pilots transferred to Mito Air Base where the 10th Air Division was putting together the 1st and 2nd Shinbutai. The 244th lieutenant became the leader of the 2nd Shinbutai. The suicide fliers picked up Oscar aircraft at Mito then went on to Chiran AB to await the signal to sortie. The word came on April 29, 1944. On that day, Lt. SHINOMIYA led a five-plane flight of his fellow Kamikaze pilots to Okinawa and certain death. Four of the men represented the 244th Hikoh Sentai in this first group of the 2nd Shinbutai (by then redesignated the 19th Shinbutai).

The points made in this last section of our coverage of the Chiran Tony, though incomplete and not mentioning other shinbutai flights that men of the 244th may have formed, make it crystal clear that the involvement of the men who participated in the formation and sinister deeds of the Shinten Seiku Tai, the Hakkohtai, and the Shinbutai make a strong correlation between the 244th Hikoh Sentai and Japan’s suicide crusade. Let it be known, therefore, that an exhibit at the Chiran Museum of a Ki-61 displaying the tail marking of the 244th is entirely appropriate. Though another selection might have been even more apt, none can say that the choice to illustrate the 244th Hikoh Sentai in connection with the Tokkohtai experience was an ill-advised decision. Also, as an exhibit, one cannot discount that the choice to exhibit this a/c in the scheme of that historically glorified unit may have been motivated on the eye appeal of the 244th’s colorful nature.

CONCLUSION

Through Don Marsh’s fine computer artwork, we have been privileged to tell the story of the journeys of a wonderful and rare old Japanese airplane. The singular Ki-61-II Kai of this chronicle has finally found a fitting permanent home at the Peace Museum for Kamikaze Pilots after decades of wanderlust. It has traveled to many places, been held in many hands over those tens of years, but at last it has settled in for the duration, never again to be the waif it once was. The one drawback to the plane’s current and probably permanent home is its inaccessibility. It is a shame that the plane didn’t undergo a complete and thorough documented rebuilding. Enthusiasts would have been overjoyed to have seen a restoration of this plane on the order of the one the National Air and Space Museum and the Champlin Fighter Museum gave the N1K2-J naval fighter a few years ago. If something like that had been done, we might now have on our library shelves a book--like Aero Detail--that reveals the plane’s every secret of construction.

The markings the plane now proudly carries are a fitting tribute to the organizations of the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force of World War Two, representing specifically a famous fighter unit and, in a more general way, all of the Tokkohtai pilots and crew who came from units like the 244th Hikoh Sentai to join the ramming-attack flights and special-attack flights and give their lives for their country in a desperate time . . . in a desperate struggle. The 244th, like so many other air units of the Japanese army and navy, fully suffered the tribulations of the suicide doctrine adopted by a frenetic military establishment in the throes of death during the final stages of a tragic war already lost.
_________________
Acknowledgements
We wish to cite and thank the several people whose crucial help with the research for this article has greatly enhanced its completeness and its competence. They are Don Cooper, Chris Cowx, James Gates, Eleftheriou George, Charles J. Graham, James Landrum, James F. (Jim) Lansdale, Osamu Tagaya, Henry Sakaida, Koji Takaki, and Takeshi Kawatoko of the Chiran Museum, and Hiroyuki Nagashima of the Japan Aeronautic Association.
Main References Consulted
Besides the Internet websites we visited, which are identified and linked in the text, we looked at the following published sources and were privileged to receive the following contributions in the form of private correspondence. The people listed here who are not already identified above also deserve our gratitude for their help in bringing this article to life. The personal letter and the e-mails are on file at AIR’TELL Publications and Research Service, 449 Whispering Pines Drive, Ocean Springs, MS 39564-4223, U.S.A.
1. Letter, personal, 10 October 2003, from Takeshi KAWATOKO.
2. Letter, e-mail, 10 September 2003, from Osamu TAGAYA.
3. Letter, e-mail, 29 October 2003, from Hiroyuki NAGASHIMA.
4. Letter, e-mail, 30 December 2002, from Ken Glass.
5. Letter, e-mail, 25 August 2003, from James Landrum.
6. Letter, e-mail, 27 August 2003, from Don Cooper.
7. Letter, e-mail, 14 November 2003, from Chris Cowx.
8. Letter, e-mail, 26 September 2003, from Eleftheriou George.
9. Letter, e-mail, 29 September 2003, from James Gates.
10. Letters, e-mail, 30 December 2003, from Henry Sakaida and Koji Takaki.
11. Model Art Co. Ltd., Medaled Pilots of Japanese Army Air Force in World War II, Model Art Editorial Office, Issue No. 416, 1993.
12. ________________, Imperial Japanese Army Air Force Suicide Attack Unit, Model Art Editorial Office, Issue No. 451, 1995.
13. ________________, I.J. Army Kawasaki Type 3 & 5 Fighter, Art Editorial Office, Issue No. 428, 1994.
14. ________________, Army Type 3 Fighter, Art Editorial Office, Issue No. 362, 1985.
15. Bunrindo Company, Kawasaki Type 3 Fighter Hien, by the Editors of Koku-Fan, Famous Airplanes of the World, Issue No. 98, 1978
16. ________________, Kawasaki Ki-61 (Tony), by the Editors of Koku-Fan, Authorized translation of Famous Airplanes of the World, Issue No. 4, 1967, U.S. Publisher: Paul Gaudette, The Beachcomber Bookshop. Copyright 1967 by Paul Gaudette.
17. ________________, The Koku-Fan (Aviation Fan) Monthly, Editorial Office, Issue for June 1973.
18. ________________, The Koku-Fan (Aviation Fan) Monthly, Editorial Office, Issue for March 1974.
19. ________________, The Koku-Fan (Aviation Fan) Monthly, Editorial Office, Issue for July 1978.
20. Delta Publishing Co. Ltd., Imperial Japanese Army Aircraft of the Pacific War Vol. II, Editorial Office, Military Aircraft Special Issue, Sep. 1997.
21. Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalisms, The University of Chicago Press, U of C, 2002. ISBN 0-226-62091-3 (paper).
22. Richard M. Bueschel, Kawasaki Ki-61 Hien in Japanese Army Air Force Service, Schiffer Publishing Ltd., 1996. ISBN 0-7643-0069-5.
23. Yoji Watanabe, Rikugun Jikken Sentohkitai, Green Arrow Publishing, Tokyo, 1999. ISBN4-7663-3289-X C0095.
24. ____________, Pictorial History of Air War Over Japan: Japanese Army Air Force, Hara Shobo Co. Ltd., Tokyo, 1980.
25. Ikuhiko Hata, Yasuho Izawa, and Christopher Shores, Japanese Army Air Force Fighter Units and Thier Aces 1931-1945, Grub Street, London, 2002. ISBN 1 902304 89 6.
26. Minoru Akimoto and Mannosuke Toda, Documentary of Imperial Japanese Army Air Corps, Volume 2, Koku-Fan Illustrated No. 80, Bunrindo Co., Ltd., Tokyo, 1995
27. Mainichi Shimbunsha, Oh! Kohkuhtai, Editorial Office, Tokyo, 1969.
28. Robert C. Mikesh, Broken Wings of the Samurai, Airlife Publishing Ltd., Shrewsbury, England, 1993. ISBN 1 85310 303 9.
29. Koji Takaki & Henry Sakaida, B-29 Hunters of the JAAF, Osprey Publishing Limited, 2001, ISBN 1 84176 161 3.
30. Asami Nagai, Kamikaze Pilots Remembered, newspaper article by Yomiuri staff writer, The Daily Yomiuri, English Language, Saturday Edition (day, month unknown), 2001.
31. Town Adiminstration, Chiran Cho, Kagoshima Prf., Peace Museum for “Kamikaze” Pilots, 22-page museum brochure, publication particulars and date unknown.
32. Peter J. Fearis, The Samurai’s Wings (Army): a Modellers Guide to the Colour Schemes and Markings of IMPERIAL JAPANESE ARMY AIRCRAFT, printed by Visual Media Services, Titchfield, Copyright 1998, Peter J. Fearis.
__________________________________________