Posted By: Rob Killick <rkillick@mb.sympatico.ca>
Date: Wednesday, 29 November 2000, at 2:53 p.m.

 

Howdy All !

As a newbie to Japanese A/C, I was wondering about the yellow wing leading edges on the majority of Japanese A/C .
Was this for I.D. purposes or a warning for ground personnel to beware of the armament ?
What gives?
TIA

Rob Killick

 

Posted By: Grant Goodale <grant.goodale@sympatico.ca>
Date: Wednesday, 29 November 2000, at 3:44 p.m.

 

In Response To: I.D. Yellow (Rob Killick)

 

Rob -

The yellow panels were introduced in early 1943. They were used to identify "friendly" aircraft. Their colour varied from light yellow to almost a yellow orange. There were even a few that appear to have red panels but these were not very common.

HTH

Grant

 

Posted By: François P. WEILL <frpawe@wanadoo.fr>
Date: Thursday, 30 November 2000, at 12:06 a.m.

 

In Response To: Re: I.D. Yellow (Grant Goodale)

 

Hi Grant,

Sorry not to fully agree with you as far as IJNAF is concerned.

In fact we still don't know exactly WHEN these IFF stripes were introduced but some were noticed as early as November 1942. Jim Lansdale once signaled an intelligence report dated Nov. (or Dec.) 42 quoting their presence on a shot down Betty in SWPA.

Now if you look to the profiles provided in Model Art # 439 (Heroes of the IJNAF), you'll notice on page 8 three profiles of Pete floatplanes. The first one, coded Y1-23 from the Chitose is very famous as it is the plane used by Kiyumi Katsuki (pilot) and Michio Takarada (observer) to ram and shoot down a B 17, which was on the verge to sink a tender. The profile has a caption dating the plane rendition as Oct. 1942 and it has no IFF bands. The two other profiles depict Petes on January 27 1943 from tender Kunikawa Maru (L2-8 and L2-11, respectively) on transport escort. Both have already the IFF bands.

For Army planes, I've not yet positively identified even a probable date of introduction of the IFF bands and it seems to be even more complicated as some very early examples in home defense duty on Ki 27 fighters seem to have existed with red and not yellow IFF bands (these bands seem to be wider and shorter than the more current and later yellow version). These early examples might have been introduced as early as just after the Doolittle raid! ...

What remains unclear to these days is when (and where) IJAAF began to use yellow bands as a mandatory feature for all combat planes...

To this day, I only noticed a fact that date back to mid 1942: the introduction by the Brits of Mohawk IV fighters from India. On the British side, used to see only inline engine on allied fighters, it induced reported mistakes with interception of Mohawk IV particularly when escorting Blenheims (themselves often confused with Ki 48 "Lily") as the Mohawks where identified as Ki 43 Hayabusa (see corresponding article in an old Air Enthusiast). I think this confusion might well have happened the same way but "the other side". In fact it might have been the source of the adoption of yellow IFF bands in the Burma theater by the IJAAF as early as September to October 1942. Another explanation might be the beginning of joint operations against Northern Australia between IJAAF and IJNAF as a common identification feature...

Finally notice that if the IJNAF used in fact two positively identified yellow (an orange yellow and a weak, toward cream pale yellow) it appears that the IJAAF was much less strict and plain orange or even red have been both reported for these IFF bands as is the more common orange yellow.

There is a lot of research yet to be done to clear this very interesting point (or can of worms??? :))) )...

Friendly.

François

 

PS: one more interesting point on the IJNAF practice: Zero fighters which were the last planes to be produced in their original offensive camouflage of glossy gray green until June 1943 were indeed FACTORY painted for a while with these yellow IFF bands, without receiving a coat of "defensive" green on the uppersurface from the - yet unknown - time these appendices became regulation and when the new "standard" two tone green over gray-green camouflage became regulation too...They actually fought in that livery particularly in Northern Australia theater from Timor. Makeshift green camouflage added in the field being a specialty of the Solomon and New Guinea based units. I mentioned this, because for a long time everybody thought the IFF bands were part of the June 1943 set of instruction on the so-called universal camouflage.

 

Posted By: James F. Lansdale <LRAJIM@aol.com>
Date: Friday, 1 December 2000, at 4:55 a.m.

 

In Response To: Re: I.D. Yellow (François P. WEILL)

 

Hi Francois

Hiroyuki TAKEUCHI reported in a 2 July 2000 posting on the JN Aircraft Board that, "An inter-service notice dated October 6, 1942 was cited (in Model Art No.565) which specified that 'For friend-foe identification, camouflaged planes should have yellow and non-camouflaged planes should have yellow or red leading edges.'"

IHTH

Jim Lansdale

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