“Japanese Lindberghs” Made a 10k Mile-Flight in 1937

A couple of days ago I discovered DeOldify [0], so I decided to colourise the pictures from this article. No copyright infringement intended, IANAL but I guess these are old enough to be public domain by now.

https://imgbox.com/ED7IqzyD

https://imgbox.com/9kUgPmJa

https://imgbox.com/Jt1ngFre

https://imgbox.com/RElPFDJf

I've also started colourising photos of my grandpa's 1937 cycling tour of Germany, Austria, and Italy [1]. To make peace, we must actively reach out and befriend all kinds of people. I'm thankful for communities like this where we can all learn from one another without discrimination.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24162561

[1] http://drmarionb.free.fr/1937CyclingTour/

More technical information:

https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/tag/masaaki-iinuma/

And a lovely illustration of the route, curiously absent from both articles, can be found here:

https://www.oldtokyo.com/tokyo-london-world-record-flight-19...

Mitsubishi, of course, also made a famous long-range fighter. Per Chuck Hawks:

> Not only could the Zero out fight any Allied fighter, it also out-ranged them. Many people do not realize that the Zero was the world's first long range escort fighter. Zeros flew long range bomber escort missions during the war in China, before the Pacific war even began. If the Germans had the long range A6M2 Zero instead of the short range Bf 109E, the outcome of the Battle of Britain might have been very different.

https://www.chuckhawks.com/best_fighter_planes.htm

It seems that most others have been relegated to relative obscurity in comparison with Lindbergh, including these Japanese pilots (hence the story).

Australia saw Charles Kingsford Smith just about a year later do a similar (if not more impressive) feat across the Pacific, and many other aviation achievements. But all he is now (pretty much) is an airport name.

Aside from all that, I'm always wowed at how these early pilots could set off into the unknown with the most rudimentary maps, no knowledge of what fuel awaited them. And no credit cards...

We should not forget the military implication of these aircraft. These were not peaceful soaring propaganda machines. A craft that could fly for days, remain aloft across the vast pacific, would have been seen as an ideal reconnaissance platform for spotting approaching fleets. In the skies of the 1930s pacific theater speed was secondary to range and reliability. If they turned and ran, even the most powerful fighters of the time would have had trouble running them down before running out of fuel themselves.

For a really interesting, semi-true story about a Japanese warplane engineer in WWII, I highly recommend watching *The Wind Rises&. Probably one of Miyazaki's finest works (although that's just my opinion).

It gives you some sense of the sense of the nationalistic feelings in Japan as they entered WWII, and the tremendous pressures their country faced to prove themselves.

“nine-cylinder Nakajima radial engine, was named Kamikaze, or Divine Wind. ”

Never knew there was another meaning for Kamikaze.

More detail on the Ki-77 disappearance from Wikipedia.

“ Their intended destination was the German airfield at Sarabus (now Hvardiiske, Crimea, WikiMiniAtlas45.118236°N 33.976564°E.) but they were to disappear over the Indian Ocean. British fighters likely intercepted them as they were aware of the flight and its route (via air grid squares 3420, 2560 and 2510) thanks to the ULTRA analysts at Bletchley Park decoding intercepted German communications to Sarabus warning of their impending arrival.[2] Slow, unarmed, without armour protection and with a substantial amount of fuel on board, the Ki-77 would have been vulnerable to Allied fighters, even had no mechanical problems occurred.”