Aircraft Of The Rising Sun

WW2 Japanese Empire

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Avion de reconnaissance Yokosuka R2Y Keiun de la Marine Impériale Japonaise – 1945

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Yokosuka R2Y Keiun de la Marine Imperiale Japanese - 1945

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A rare, airworthy A6M3 Zero owned/operated by the Commemorative Air Force at Chino Airport

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In 1943, Nishizawa Hiroyoshi aboard a Mitsubishi A6M3 Type 0 carrier fighter Model 22 in the Solomon Islands. The aircraft number "105" can be confirmed on the tail fin of the fuselage, and it is introduced in many books and models as the aircraft of Japan's top-class ace pilot, Chief Petty Officer Flight Warrant Officer "Nishizawa Hiroyoshi (Nishizawa Hiroyoshi)," who belonged to the 251st Naval Air Group.

@MaximumOden via X

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Two A6M2 Type 0 Model 11 Zero fighters in flight from Yichang, Hubei Province to attack Nanzheng, Shaanxi Province in China, 26 May 1941; the aircraft in the foreground was flown by Kunimori Nakakariya

@voicesofWW2 via X

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Tap Arrow or copy and paste link to watch ☝️🇯🇵🤞

This historic footage captures the moment when Japanese Navy aircraft, returning from an attack on the U.S. Navy's task force during the Battle of Leyte Gulf (Battle off Cape Engaño) on October 25, 1944, made emergency landings on the ocean surface. The Japanese military's aircraft carriers had already been severely damaged or sunk, leaving the returning pilots without a mother ship to land on, forcing them to resort to ditching at sea. This series of footage is widely known as the record of the "Battle of Leyte Gulf" from the Japanese newsreel of the time, *Japan News No. 232 (released November 9, 1944)* 🙏

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27 May 1939. Hiromichi Shinohara, highest-achieving fighter ace of the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service, downed ten enemy machines on his first combat sortie, flying a Nakajima Ki-27. (4 Soviet Polikarpov I-16, 5 Polikarpov I-15 and 1 Polikarpov R-Z reconnaissance).

@ron_eisele via X

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November 1944: Eighteen young men stand together at Chōshi Airfield, Japan. They look surprisingly calm, even happy, for pilots preparing for their first and final operational flight. These are Kamikazes. Of the men frozen in this moment, only Toshio Yoshitake, standing on the far right, would survive the mission and the war. He was plucked from the sky by an American fighter before he could reach his target. Like the nation he served, he spent the rest of his life carrying the heavy, silent weight of this photograph. 1/2

By the end of WWII, Japan had launched around 3,000 of these "special attacks," a desperate gamble against the inevitable. The statistics are staggering: they sank up to 60 Allied ships and left nearly 10,000 sailors dead or wounded. Approximately 3,800 Kamikaze pilots vanished into the Pacific. Operationally, the mission was a tragedy of diminishing returns; only 19% ever struck a target. Most were intercepted by fighters or shredded by anti aircraft fire long before reaching the fleet. It was a tragic, high cost tactic that ultimately failed to change the outcome of the war. 2/2

@RealAirPower1 via X

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20 May 1955. Death of Tetsuzō Iwamoto (b. 15 June 1916). Most successful Japanese Second Sino-Japanese War and WWII fighter ace. Officially credited with 80 combat victories his war diary claimed 202 individual victories, 26 shared and 22 unconfirmed.

@ron_eisele via X

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18 May 1944. Death of Morio Matsui, 21 victory Japanese WWII fighter ace, Killed in action.

@ron_eisele via X

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Mitsubishi A6M2

@BigIronLB via X

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Type0 A6M3

Imperial Japanese Navy

@kmz650 via X

This is a poor AI image

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A6M Zero, damaged by concentrated anti-aircraft fire, diving on USS Essex, 14 May 1945

@ron_eisele via X

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15 May 1983. Death of Fujitaro Ito, 13 victory Imperial Japanese Army WWII fighter ace. He primarily flew the Kawasaki Ki-61-II-Kai Hien.

@ron_eisele via X

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Let's turn back the clock to September 1942.

@Ryukuaunripper via X

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United States intelligence schematic of the Japanese MXY7 Ohka “Baka” bomb published 10 May 1945, just five weeks after the weapon’s discovery on Okinawa.

@voicesofWW2 via X

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Avion de patrouille maritime Kawanishi H6K ‘Mavis’

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Ki-66 Dive Bomber

Designed by Kawasaki as the successor to the Type 99 Twin-Engine Light Bomber. It was equipped with slat-type dive brakes, but as a result of its performance being outpaced by the Type 99 Twin-Engine Light Bomber Type 2 below, it lost its raison d'être and was not adopted. The data obtained from the design was carried over to the Ki-102.

@minor_military via X

The Kawasaki Ki-66 was a twin-engined dive bomber designed after the German successes in Poland and France in 1939-40, but that never entered production.