Japanese aircraft 1939 identities?
- Thread starter islandee
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GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
The first photo is of a Mitsubishi KI-46 (Army type 100) and the second photo is of a Mitsubishi G3N (Navy type 96).
Both are communication planes sponsored by Asahi Shinbun in the 1930s.
1. Modified Type 93 twin-engine light bomber (Mitsubishi Ki-2-II Louise) for Asahi's "Nanshin" J-BAAE (old name "Ohtori").
Flew friendship flight to Bangkok in December 1936.
2. Also, Asahi Shinbun's "Soyokaze" plane J-BEOA as Mitsubishi G3M civil-type. Flew to Tehran in April-May 1939 to participate in the royal wedding.
Dropped in Bangkok en route.
1. Modified Type 93 twin-engine light bomber (Mitsubishi Ki-2-II Louise) for Asahi's "Nanshin" J-BAAE (old name "Ohtori").
Flew friendship flight to Bangkok in December 1936.
2. Also, Asahi Shinbun's "Soyokaze" plane J-BEOA as Mitsubishi G3M civil-type. Flew to Tehran in April-May 1939 to participate in the royal wedding.
Dropped in Bangkok en route.
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
Shinpachi-san did a far better job than I did!
For some reason, that first aircraft struck me as a "Dinah" right away and I should have taken the time to look closer at the observer's canopy placement!
For some reason, that first aircraft struck me as a "Dinah" right away and I should have taken the time to look closer at the observer's canopy placement!
Thanks Dave.
Clues to identify it for me were J-BAAE and Asahi's marking.
Yes, it looked Dinah for me too.
Source: ttps://www.flickr.com/photos/sdasmarchives/21600587655/
Clues to identify it for me were J-BAAE and Asahi's marking.
Yes, it looked Dinah for me too.
Source: ttps://www.flickr.com/photos/sdasmarchives/21600587655/
- Thread starter
- #7
islandee
Airman
Thank you for the IDs --- and your prompt responses.
They opened several leads. Seto's text does mention exact dates for visits of his unidentified flights, but I had disregarded them for the book contains numerous date errors, whether from memory or typo.
Events on 19 May and 17 October 1939, he associates with round-the-world flights. I see no headlines about that, though the Tehran flight would have been long for that era: the visit on 19 May 1939 might record the Soyokaze's return flight from Tehran which arrived at Haneda on 27 May (per Arawasi-wildeagles blog). Seto didn't start attending school until May 1939, so he would have missed the April flight outbound. I don't find any further info regarding the 17 October 1939 date.
Finally Seto mentions seeing the Yamato in December 1939: Aeropedia Blog records it as having made a "flag waving" flight to Rome in April 1937 --- but that was two years before Seto entered school. Seto's comment about a round-the-world flight did not include the Yamato, so he may have witnessed a lesser flight made later.
Again, thank you for your assistance.
Hak Hakanson
Chiang Mai
They opened several leads. Seto's text does mention exact dates for visits of his unidentified flights, but I had disregarded them for the book contains numerous date errors, whether from memory or typo.
Events on 19 May and 17 October 1939, he associates with round-the-world flights. I see no headlines about that, though the Tehran flight would have been long for that era: the visit on 19 May 1939 might record the Soyokaze's return flight from Tehran which arrived at Haneda on 27 May (per Arawasi-wildeagles blog). Seto didn't start attending school until May 1939, so he would have missed the April flight outbound. I don't find any further info regarding the 17 October 1939 date.
Finally Seto mentions seeing the Yamato in December 1939: Aeropedia Blog records it as having made a "flag waving" flight to Rome in April 1937 --- but that was two years before Seto entered school. Seto's comment about a round-the-world flight did not include the Yamato, so he may have witnessed a lesser flight made later.
Again, thank you for your assistance.
Hak Hakanson
Chiang Mai
- Thread starter
- #8
islandee
Airman
And to close another loop, the Ki-2 flight to Bangkok was in December 1936 --- three years before Seto came to Bangkok from Songkhla to go to school.
If the date in May 1939 does record the Soyokaze's return flight from Tehran, that date would apply to the second photo (with the October date to be assigned to the first photo, the Ki-2).
BTW, is there a translation for the Japanese characters on the plane?
Hak Hakanson
Chiang Mai
If the date in May 1939 does record the Soyokaze's return flight from Tehran, that date would apply to the second photo (with the October date to be assigned to the first photo, the Ki-2).
BTW, is there a translation for the Japanese characters on the plane?
Hak Hakanson
Chiang Mai
Masao Seto (1931- ), photographer in Thailand.
I did not know him.
Thank you very much, Hak
Source: 「僕には国籍がなかった」87歳の報道カメラマン・瀬戸正夫さんに聞く波乱万丈なメシの話 - メシ通 | ホットペッパーグルメ
I did not know him.
Thank you very much, Hak
Source: 「僕には国籍がなかった」87歳の報道カメラマン・瀬戸正夫さんに聞く波乱万丈なメシの話 - メシ通 | ホットペッパーグルメ
"そよかぜ (soyokaze)" is writen on the second photo.
- Thread starter
- #12
islandee
Airman
Thank you for the translation of そよかぜ: the font was too stylish for my basic hiragana.
Thank you also for the link to the interview with Seto: I'm in the process of getting parts of his autobio translated from Thai into English and it may help in clarifying some murky points. He wrote it in Japanese and I believe a limited edition was published in Bangkok in 2002: I don't have the publication data for this. The two volumes were then translated into Thai and published, one by one, in 2005 and 2006 in Bangkok, and those are what I'm working with.
This multi-lingual sequence is somewhat similar to my brief interface with Seto last November in northern Thailand. He was returning from a tour of WW II sites in western Mae Hong Son and wanted to research a report that IJA troops retreating from Burma had been massacred in Muang Noi (N19°30.7 E98°30.8), a mountain village north of Pai.
The effort culminated in a scene in a small humble three-sided shelter serving as a store/restaurant in very rural Muang Noi where Seto interviewed a local Thai. Seto, fluent in Thai and Japanese, but not English, conducted the interview. He provided a running translation into Japanese for his friend and host for the tour, David Boggett, who is fluent in English and Japanese. Boggett then translated that into English for mono-lingual me. So Thai to Japanese to English. I had to recall the parlor game, "telephone message", in which a message is whispered around a table with the last person usually receiving a message vastly different from the original message. Seto's conclusion from the interview was not distorted, however: he was confident that the massacre could not have occurred.
FYI, Seto is mentally sharp, but he is encumbered by poor eyesight which forces him to move slowly and hesitantly for fear of having a fall. Fascinating fellow:
His longevity --- he's now in his late 80s --- may be attributable to spells of a very limited diet in his youth: his autobio recounts being continually hungry, not as a result of limited food supplies during the war, but rather because of a not particularly supportive step-mother.
The problem with eyesight can probably be traced to his having been hit in an eye by a bullet which lodged in his eye socket: apparently the bullet originated from a shooter who fired at least two shots: the first missed (he heard it whiz by), but the second caught him in an eye. Either the shooter was sufficiently distant that the bullet was nearly spent when it hit Seto, or the cartridge was defective. Otherwise, the bullet would have gone into his brain and probably killed him. The eyeball was not seriously damaged and he himself eventually removed the bullet after doctors shied away from the task. This occurred long after the WWII, in 1971, on a mountain hike in Surat Thani in southern Thailand. He may have been a victim, intended or otherwise, of the separatist insurgency in the south which had begun in 1948.
Hak Hakanson
Chiang Mai
Thank you also for the link to the interview with Seto: I'm in the process of getting parts of his autobio translated from Thai into English and it may help in clarifying some murky points. He wrote it in Japanese and I believe a limited edition was published in Bangkok in 2002: I don't have the publication data for this. The two volumes were then translated into Thai and published, one by one, in 2005 and 2006 in Bangkok, and those are what I'm working with.
This multi-lingual sequence is somewhat similar to my brief interface with Seto last November in northern Thailand. He was returning from a tour of WW II sites in western Mae Hong Son and wanted to research a report that IJA troops retreating from Burma had been massacred in Muang Noi (N19°30.7 E98°30.8), a mountain village north of Pai.
The effort culminated in a scene in a small humble three-sided shelter serving as a store/restaurant in very rural Muang Noi where Seto interviewed a local Thai. Seto, fluent in Thai and Japanese, but not English, conducted the interview. He provided a running translation into Japanese for his friend and host for the tour, David Boggett, who is fluent in English and Japanese. Boggett then translated that into English for mono-lingual me. So Thai to Japanese to English. I had to recall the parlor game, "telephone message", in which a message is whispered around a table with the last person usually receiving a message vastly different from the original message. Seto's conclusion from the interview was not distorted, however: he was confident that the massacre could not have occurred.
FYI, Seto is mentally sharp, but he is encumbered by poor eyesight which forces him to move slowly and hesitantly for fear of having a fall. Fascinating fellow:
His longevity --- he's now in his late 80s --- may be attributable to spells of a very limited diet in his youth: his autobio recounts being continually hungry, not as a result of limited food supplies during the war, but rather because of a not particularly supportive step-mother.
The problem with eyesight can probably be traced to his having been hit in an eye by a bullet which lodged in his eye socket: apparently the bullet originated from a shooter who fired at least two shots: the first missed (he heard it whiz by), but the second caught him in an eye. Either the shooter was sufficiently distant that the bullet was nearly spent when it hit Seto, or the cartridge was defective. Otherwise, the bullet would have gone into his brain and probably killed him. The eyeball was not seriously damaged and he himself eventually removed the bullet after doctors shied away from the task. This occurred long after the WWII, in 1971, on a mountain hike in Surat Thani in southern Thailand. He may have been a victim, intended or otherwise, of the separatist insurgency in the south which had begun in 1948.
Hak Hakanson
Chiang Mai
What a guy
