An interesting article on Japanese resurgence in 1945

[Dave Homewood]

Check out this article from the RNZAF Official News Service, as printed in the Press newspaper in Christchurch on the 3rd of April 1945. The fact the Kiwis were seeing a sudden resurgence of Japanese air activity is interesting indeed. And also of note is the last paragraph where the enemy were supposedly trying to convince people they were building new aeroplanes at Rabaul!

JAPANESE OVER NEW BRITAIN

SIGNS OF INCREASED AIR ACTIVITY

(R.N.Z.A.F. Official News Service.) BOUGAINVILLE. March 31.

Signs of increased Japanese air activity over New Britain were given added weight yesterday when a Zero made a half-hearted attack on three R.N.Z.A.F. Venturas over the Gazelle Peninsula. The enemy made one pass without firing and then apparently changed his mind, because he sheered off.

After keeping his pilots grounded for many months, the enemy has sent up aircraft several times in the last fortnight. Sightings have been made in the Bismarcks, but the Japanese have shown no inclination to come to grips, and usually escape into the clouds.

Seeing their hundredth air victory in view, New Zealand Corsair pilots are “pawing the ground,” as one observer put it, and are welcoming the opportunity for aerial action after a long period of attacking ground targets only.

Coinciding with the enemy s increased air activity in the south-west Pacific, the Tokyo radio has announced the arrival in Japan of a liaison flight of aircraft “manufactured in the Rabaul factory." The Tokyo picture of production lines turning out scores of new aircraft merits scepticism, but it does seem probable that the Japanese are making an effort to recondition aircraft from local remnants. Such aeroplanes are so hopelessly outnumbered that their sorties necessarily are confined to sneak raids and possibly to the transport of necessary supplies to their beleaguered garrisons.

[davidd]

I think the last paragraph (above) sums up the true situation pretty succinctly. What was the old English saying? Something along the lines of: "One swallow does not a summer make".
David D

[Dave Homewood]

It actually made me think, did the Japanese actually set up any aircraft manufacturing outside of Japan itself, in the various conquered countries? I guess for most places it was not a case of walking into an established factory and force the workers to build their own designs, like the Germans did in some of the countries it conquered?

[davidd]

Would not really like to make any comment on that one Dave, but off top of my head, if tortured, would say "probably not". Cannot imagine any of Japan's satellites being capable of any sort of large scale aircraft (airframe) production, let alone engines - even Korea (somebody will tell us if I got that one wrong!)
David D

[Dave Homewood]

I would suspect you're right. I know even in China before the war they were importing loads of aeroplanes so I suspect there was not much of an industry there.

[Dave Homewood]

I decided to ask about outsourced Japanese aircraft manufacture in conquered countries on the Facebook page called WWII Pacific Air War, and I received this response almost immediately, from Nicolas Isquith:

"There were aircraft factories in Manchukou (Japanese-puppet state in Manchuria) that produced Nakajima fighters and other planes because the industry in this area was built by the Japanese. There may have been factories in Korea and Taiwan but other than that China and the other conquered territories were not really industrialized to the level of Japan but had the natural resources that Japan lacked"

[shorty]

Another question I have wondered about- We know the Japanese got one or two samples of German aircraft but did it ever work in reverse? Did the Luftwaffe receive any examples of Japanese aircraft for evaluation, testing etc?

[Mustang51]

Not to my knowledge. I believe that the Japanese believed that the German technology to be superior and thus learn from them.

[shorty]

I have found one occasion 0of my query regarding Japanese types for the Luftwaffe. It refers to a Nakajima E8N "Dave";
One E8N was purchased in early 1941 by the German Naval Attache to Japan, Vice-Admiral Paul Wenneker, and dispatched on board the KM Münsterland to rendezvous with the German auxiliary cruiser Orion at Maug Island in the Marianas. The meeting occurred on the 1st of February, 1941, and Orion thus became the only German naval vessel of the Second World War to employ a Japanese float plane.

Now I would like to find a photo of it in German markings

Prior to embarking the E8N the "Orion" had been in New Zealand waters and had the laid the minefield that claimed the Niagara off Three Kings Islands

[Dave Homewood]

Very interesting Nev.

[shorty]

Found a photo of the E8N on board the Orion and it is painted with a RAF roundel and the serial L5196 as a disguise. Dont know a what stage it was disembarked

ww2db.com/image.php?image_id=12083

[Dave Homewood]

Wow, devious! I know they disguised their ships as neutral Japanese fishing vessels before the Japanese entered the war - they sank a New Zealand ship under such a disguise. Surely that is a war crime?

[davidd]

I doubt it Dave, disguising identities of combatant ships in time of war is a pretty old trick. The Germans did disguise their surface raiders as "innocent" modern cargo vessels (but not fishing vessels) before Pearl Harbour. The story I like best was during WW1 when two auxiliary combatants (Central powers versus Great Britain), met on the high seas, in 1915 I think. Both were conversions of pre-war great liners, both had been built with provision for fitment of reasonably heavy armaments in time of war, and would you believe it, they happened to meet on the high seas unexpectedly, with no other ships within hundreds of miles. The really interesting thing was that they were disguised as each other! Then they slugged it out. Now THAT was a coincidence and a half. The only rule (if it was a rule, I think it was) that could justify such sneakiness was that the (sneaky) combatant had to break out their true (nationality) flag prior to opening fire. Make of that what you will. Of course the "rules" will have almost certainly been changed since then, and hopefully some kind forumite will soon provide us with the names of the ships concerned in that long ago battle, and the date and place (I am fairly certain it was the South Atlantic). And perhaps the modern counterpart to rules of engagement of vessels on the high seas, and their apparent versus true status. Possibly there are no such rules, at least with reference to disguises, as modern communications and instant intelligence may have made such shinnanigans extremely unlikely. Or maybe not.
David D

[Dave Homewood]

Mar 22, 2021 10:41:11 GMT 12 davidd said:

The Germans did disguise their surface raiders as "innocent" modern cargo vessels (but not fishing vessels) before Pearl Harbour. 

OK, I had read that the Komet disguised itself as the Japanese fishing vessel Nanyo Maru when it attacked and sank the New Zealand based ship SS Komata, of the Union Steamship Company. However after reading your comment it seems the old newspaper report of the time had it wrong, the Nanyo Maru was a cargo ship.