USA/Japanese Pacific color pixs.

[Tieleader]

Hey guys.
Many years ago when I painted the nose art on the Collings Foundation A-26C the first time (I'll post those another time)
,whilst the bird was down for an annual inspection,I meet
an A-20 pilot (sorry don't remember his name) who was part of the team. We got to talking of course and he told me had a few pictures of his time in the Pacific. He was gracious enough to make copies of these for me. He said these were taken at Ie Shima island in 1945. The G4M Bettys were carried some officers that where transferred to the C-54 that took off shortly later. Don't know why. The rest of the birds were various ones around the base. Never seen any of these before so I have no reason to doubt him. Anyone care to clarify on these?
In any event enjoy!

 

[Wurger]

 

[Gnomey]

Good stuff!

 

[GrauGeist]

Nice collection!

The 7th pic in, is an SB-17G complete with a lifeboat.

 

[Tieleader]

Nice collection!

The 7th pic in, is an SB-17G complete with a lifeboat.

Thank the pilot who gave me them. I just hoarded them for years...

 

[Shinpachi]

I remember a Betty pilot's testimony - No.1 Betty suffered flap trouble to land on Ie-shima, so he had to try it again after No.2 landed.
Thanks for sharing, Tieleader.
Fantastic pics

 

[Tieleader]

I remember a Betty pilot's testimony - No.1 Betty suffered flap trouble to land on Ie-shima, so he had to try it again after No.2 landed.
Thanks for sharing, Tieleader.
Fantastic pics

Wow! Amazing to think that somehow the story could be filled in. Looking again you can clearly see the flaps are not down in #2 pix. Do you have any other details? The A-20 pilot I got these from had little remembrance about the events other that what I posted. I would love to hear another else you can share. Also as I told Dave, thank the pilot I just passed them on.

 

[GrauGeist]

Another fun fact that these color photos bear out (and Shinpachi and I have discussed this in other threads) is that the surrender crosses are supposed to be green!
The crosses on these G4Ms are deliberately black and look much like Balkan Crosses...

 

[Tieleader]

Give me few minutes I'll try to get some better resolutions.

 

[Tieleader]

This is the best I can do. I hate it when the machine is smarter that me.
Maybe somebody more tech savy than me can improve on these.
Definitely look black as well in the originals as well, else a VERY dark green.

 

[GrauGeist]

Give me few minutes I'll try to get some better resolutions.

The resolution of the photos are great, no problem.

But the bulk of the IJN and IJA aircraft painted in surrender markings were captured in black and white photographs, and the debate raged for years that the crosses were green paint until color photos started surfacing. And in many color photos, the crosses were indeed black instead of green, as the surrender terms dictated.

Shinpachi-san and I were in agreement that the black (instead of green) were not by accident.

 

[Tieleader]

Why black? Just whatever paint was available?

 

[GrauGeist]

Why black? Just whatever paint was available?

Think of it as the last great act of defiance by the Imperial military.

The U.S. just got finished fighting an enemy that bore black crosses and here's the Japanese with black crosses on their aircraft in defiance of the order to have green crosses on their aircraft.

They had plenty of green paint, so it shouldn't have been a problem to make the crosses green

 

[Tieleader]

Nothing like a final FU to your enemy!

 

[GrauGeist]

Nothing like a final FU to your enemy!

Yep!

 

[Tieleader]

I suppose putting a swastika on the tail would have been pushing the matter...

 

[GrauGeist]

Ohh...yeah...

That probably would have been a bit overboard...

 

[Tieleader]

Used this opportunity to replace the original grainy pixs with the "scanner is smarter than ignorant monkey" pixs.

 

[Shinpachi]

We should remember that, as of August 19 1945 in Ie-shima, both countries were still under the state of war.
IJN personnels like 302Ku in Atsugi airbase showed strong resistance, in the form of uprising, to the government's decision for surrender.

The 2 Bettys flown to the Ie-shima were the oldest model of G4M1 becuase naval officials thought it was too early to show the enemy their latest models when the war was not formally over yet. They would not have hesitated to call such black cross as green cross with excuse that Japanese used to call the beautiful black hairs like "Green black hairs". Green originally meant "vivid", not the term for color.

The flap trouble of No.1 was caused by the aged electric circuits. Pilot was unable to fix it but warned on radio "Land immediately or you will be shot down" by the US Forces on the ground. As the brake condition was also not good, he was about to ram a US plane parked beside the runway like Kamikaze.

The point to understand the Ie-shima situation would be that the war was not over until September 2, 1945.

 

[Shinpachi]

A local historian shows a Betty model at the Samejima beach near Tokyo.
He says the No.1 Betty ditched here because of fuel shortage on her way back to Tokyo in the midnight of August 20, 1945.
Crews were rescued.

Source: 緑十字機 (岡部英一) (@sera777) | Twitter