japanese aircraft

[ducatirider]

hi,
just came across this site....does anyone know why the japanese used roman letter on the tails of their planes?? why wouldn,t they have used japanese letters???
You,d think having roman letters would have made them more easily identifiable to US or british fliers and sailors..also would sailors and crew members have to be taught these western letters?

to me this is like if today the US Navy would put cryllic letters on the tails of their carrier planes..
doesn,t make sense to me to use a foreign language or alphabet on your warbirds...

 

[Jabberwocky]

Hi,
Just came across this site. Does anyone know why the Japanese used Roman letters on the tails of their planes? Why wouldn't they have used Japanese letters?

You'd think having Roman letters would have made them more easily identifiable to US or British fliers and sailors. Also would sailors and crew members have to be taught these western letters?

To me this is like if today the US Navy would put cryllic letters on the tails of their carrier planes.
Doesn't make sense to me to use a foreign language or alphabet on your warbirds.

Japan put Hindu-Arabic (not Roman) numerals on the tails of aircraft. The country adopted the Hindu-Arabic numbering system in the post-Meiji Restoration period.

I believe it was formally adopted under the 1908 education reforms. However, there are examples of Hindu-Arabic numerals in Japanese texts dating back to the 1860s, so it would have been known in Japan before then (contact with the Portuguese dates back to the 1550s).

In Japan, Hindu-Arabic numerals are generally used in horizontal script (such as on an aircraft's tail), whereas traditional Japanese characters are used in vertical script.

 

[proton45]

Its almost as ridiculous as Americans using Roman numerals....

 

[Shinpachi]

I have never thought about such an issue before.
English was banned during the war but Roman alphabet had been familiar with the Japanese since the Meiji Restoration of 1867 with Arabic numerals.
That question may sound similar to why the Japanese soldiers did not wear their traditional clothes - Kimono.

In addition, there is one more misunderstanding about the Japanese culture,
Sushi is not a diet food. Fish is good for the health but the rice contain high calory.

 

[ducatirider]

Thanks for the answers ! I was hoping someone from Japan would explain this..

 

[Shinpachi]

All three are Japanese

 

[ducatirider]

Hi to everyone in Japan!!! Hope to see your beautiful country some day!

 

[ducatirider]

I,ve been thinking about this,,,,What was the purpose of adopting the Roman alphabet?? I have never seen Japanese writing using the Roman alphabet..were there any other examples of using these letters other than tail markings on aircraft??
I see pictures of Japan today and see some signs in English ..But during WW2 i wouldn,t have thought anything would have been in English...As you stated, English was banned..

 

[Shinpachi]

To learn the Roman alphabets was the very first step to understand the western languages and to introduce Japan.

Several photos during the wwII.

 

[Gixxerman]

IIRC the Japanese Imperial navy in it's earlier developement was quite close to actively learned a lot in the 19th/20th century from the Europeans, especially the British Royal Navy, so it might be no surprise that some of this 'cross-cultural influence' is evident in places.

 

[Shinpachi]

That is totally correct, Gixxerman.
This flag was called "Ｚ旗(Z flag)" as it was in IJN.

 

[ducatirider]

That,s pretty interesting ! I,m learning things..
Thanks!!

 

[Capt. Vick]

Hi to everyone in Japan!!! Hope to see your beautiful country some day!

I'm sure Shinpachi will pass that along for you...

 

[vikingBerserker]

That is really fascinating, thank you for the education Shinpachi!

 

[Shinpachi]

Thanks guys!

An interesting fact was that baseball came from the US but was not banned during the war.
It was too popular with the Japanese people to be banned.

 

[ducatirider]

There,s an idea for a movie along the lines of "Victory" (about German captors organizing allied pow,s into a soccer team to play the German national team during WW2)
Could be about a baseball game in Japan during wartime!

Off the subject...There was a show on TV here a year or two ago about Japan detonating their own atomic bomb towards the end of the war..I think it was supposed to
be detonated in northern Japan on some remote island...But the war ended before anything else happened..Have you ever heard this story?
Going to try and find some info on that..(maybe that,s where Godzilla originated from!!)His roar used to scare me!!

 

[Shinpachi]

Japanese scientists during the war thought the atomic bomb was a future technology of the 21st century though the research and development was going on to seek possibility as a weapon. When I was a student of a local college of technology in the 1970s, I heard a professor of Fukushima National University was unofficially successful to assemble an experimental atomic bomb in his laboratory long time ago but it was not before 1945.

 

[ducatirider]

I found this :


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdCe2wBeCiw

 

[Shinpachi]

It's a myth or overestimate, ducatirider.
They did not believe they could achieve it at all till they witnessed Hiroshima.
Again, it was a future technology of the 21st century for them.

 

[ducatirider]

I never heard of anything like this till the show was broadcast.
Thanks for your answers and information!!