Ki-84 "Located" in Australia.

[Koga]

Hey I found some interesting information stating that a Ki 84 was "located" in Australia.

Here is all the information that I could find on it. Could somebody else help me do a search to see if they can uncover this is even true. I got the serial number too!

Ki-84
Unit: unknown
Serial: 5-17
The plane captured by US. It was located in Australia.

PS: Do you think it maybe means that was were it was moved to, and that it was captured somewere else?


Koga

 

[HealzDevo]

I think it is highly most likely it was captured somewhere else and transferred to the Australian mainland as, there was no Japanese fighting in Australia except a few raids over Darwin, and a submarine attack on Sydney Harbour. Also the fact that it was captured by US forces, suggests it was transferred here, and maybe captured from a Japanese forward airfield. With what has been heard about the Japanese pilots, it seems very unlikely they would follow surrender requests by US or Australian pilots.

 

[HealzDevo]

As said I don't think it was captured in Australia due to the fact that it would probably have been Australian forces capturing it or at least taking the credit if it was captured here. I heard that quite a few Japanese forward Airfields were captured during the fighting, so maybe they managed to capture the Zeron intact and fly it out and back to Australia. I know I have heard something about the extensive testing of a zero to find out more about its weaknesses and strengths in combat, but I just can't remember where.

 

[evangilder]

There was a slightly damaged Zero that was found on the Aleutians that was tested exclusively by the US. Is that the one that you are thinking of? It was Koga's Zero.

 

[Koga]

That was not the one I was thinking of. The zero is a completely different plane then the Ki-84. I think it was just moved to australia.

Koga

 

[evangilder]

I know that too, it's just that sometimes stories change as the pass around. I have not heard of a captured Ki-84 flown by the US in Austalia, but it is possible.

 

[Wildcat]

I haven't heard of a Ki-84 being flown in Australia, however there was a secret unit that evaluated Japanese aircraft in Brisbane. This unit did test a Zero , Oscar and a Tony.
For more info
http://home.st.net.au/~dunn/usaaf/atiu.htm