Any Model 18 experts out there?
I’m reading a biography of Walter and Olive Ann Beach.
In it, the author (a newspaper reporter, not an aviation historian) clearly states that the Japanese used Model 18s in WWII.
In fact, he says the scene in the recent film “Letters from Iwo Jima” was accurate when it showed the Japanese commander flying to the island in a Twin Beech.
(Like many of you, I thought that the film makers used what was available..after all, no airworthy Japanese transport aircraft from that period exist and the Twin Beech certainly looks like a WWII-era aircraft).
I can’t imagine a decent author making that kind of mistake, but my sources on Beech and wartime Japanese aircraft (Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War by Francillon), don’t mention any Imperial Japanese 18s.
The biography lists a 2004 book published by the Beech Heritage Museum “Beech 18: a Civil & Military History” by Parmerter as its primary source on the type, so perhaps he read it in there. I don’t have a copy of that book, it seems to be rare now and priced accordingly on the internet.
The biography’s author also mentions that aviation author Edward H. Phillips, who has written at least five books on Travel Air and Beech aircraft, proofread the manuscript, and I would think he would have caught such a obvious error, so perhaps the Japanese really did have some Twin Beeches?
The Japanese did make Staggerwings (Beech Model 17s) under license, so that might have caused some confusion.
By: RPM, FF, TGT... - 3rd December 2012 at 22:41
Further reference to the Search on East New Britain….
Sigh… sorry for the thread drift…..
Mr. Boyle….
We have been through all this before. Many, many people have inferred just what you are inferring, ie; “That it could have been a Japanese aircraft, that they saw”… which is what you are saying. People will continually try and place another aircraft type in that spot on the side of a hill in ENB without looking at the words of the Vets and reviewing the evidence.
One ridiculous statement made recently on “another forum” by a brainless individual, put the aircraft they saw as a three-engined Guinea Airways Junkers G31, “destroyed by the Army of Nippon and then placed on ENB”. If that were the case the Australian Diggers would have referred to it as being made of “wriggly tin”, the common expression in Oz for corrugated iron. Then logically, identification would have fallen onto a “wriggly tin” aircraft….
Yes, what they saw was “wrecked”, they gave no indication that it was “burnt” (tanks dry) and so, …onto your “faded”….
Mr. Boyle, as for Hinomaru’s fading…. I have stood looking at a Nakajima Helen sat forlornly at Alexishaven and seen a bright and shiny Hinomaru on it 45 years after the end of WWII so you cannot tell me that if it were a Jap aircraft they saw with the longest possibility of only three years “of fading” that they would have somehow “missed” the big red blob on the side of the fuselage…..
Chill out yourself, Mr. Boyle …and apply some logic to the pointers to identification contained in the website.
RPM, FF, TGT…
www.electranewbritain.com
By: J Boyle - 3rd December 2012 at 18:09
Furthermore don’t you all think that any Australian soldier engaged in hostilities with the Japanese Imperial Army would fail to notice a Bl**dy great red Hinomaru on the side of the fuselage if it was a Japanese all-metal unpainted aircraft they were looking at ?RPM, FF, TGT…
www.electranewbritain.com
Not it it were wrecked, burned or simply faded.
Chill out..I’m not attacking your hypothesis, rather just putting out other possible reasons for twin-tailed aircraft being reported. 🙂
By: Stony - 3rd December 2012 at 11:21
I’m sure the Lockheed I mentioned, was at a dump at the island of Java…
Nothing to do with Earhart……..
By: RPM, FF, TGT... - 3rd December 2012 at 03:44
Mention of the East New Britain search for Earhart’s Lockheed 10E on this thread…
For those that have mentioned a Japanese aircraft as the possible contender for what my Project Group are searching for in the ENB Jungle, they say the following:
J Boyle in Post #5 suggests that a Japanese built Lockheed 14 or indeed a Japanese Lockheed from wherever s the contender for our search.
Stony in Post # 7 suggests a captured Lockheed 12 from the NEIAAF.
Scouse in Post #14 says a Lockheed 14.
Flying-A suggests J Boyle has a good point about Japanese aircraft being the contender.
My response is this:
What we have on our 1945 Patrol Map notation concerns a Pratt & Whitney R1340 S3H1 “Wasp” engine of 600 H.P. There is no mention of a larger sized engine being found such as a Wright Cyclone or a Sakai or any other Japanese engine of larger value horsepower.
Also Lockheed 12’s used by the NEIAAF used the 450 H.P Wasp engine and this engine is not mentioned on the Map.
Furthermore don’t you all think that any Australian soldier engaged in hostilities with the Japanese Imperial Army would fail to notice a Bl**dy great red Hinomaru on the side of the fuselage if it was a Japanese all-metal unpainted aircraft they were looking at ? Were they blind as well then ?
Would you care to read the website again, Gentlemen.
RPM, FF, TGT…
www.electranewbritain.com
By: Art-J - 13th November 2012 at 12:22
Well, if we’re discussing Thalias, Tinas and whatnot, I strongly recommend Giuseppe Picarella’s book “Japanese Experimental Transport Aircraft of the Pacific War”, published last year. Despite slightly misleading title (“experimental”), it is a freakin’ bible on ALL the subject of wartime transport machinery built in Japan, including some obscure designs even master Francillon didn’t know about, when he was writing his Opus Magnum (btw. the old man himself wrote a recommendation foreword for the title above). Lots of precious info about slightly forgotten planes, plus even more fantastic photos dug out of old archives. An absolute must-have If you’re into IJN and IJAAF aircraft.
By: Flying-A - 13th November 2012 at 05:12
BTW: I point out the Japanese use of Lockheeds when people talk about allied solders finding Earhart’s plane on a island late in the war. Yes, they were larger Lodestars and not AE’s Electra, but again, many ground troops have never been experts on aircraft recognition.
Good point. Plus, Japan had its own homegrown twin fin, twin engine plane, the Mitsubishi G3M “Nell” bomber and its L3Y “Tina” transport version. Moreover, both are known to have been operated in bare metal finish and that seems to have been the norm for the Tina:
http://www.daveswarbirds.com/Nippon/aircraft/Tina.htm
By: Scouse - 12th November 2012 at 23:17
That’s what I was trying to say. The Lockheed 14 was licence-built by first Tachikawa and then Kawasaki, and Kawasaki then built their own derivative as the Ki56. By that stage of events, I doubt if the niceties of licence payments came into it.
(Source: Japanese Aircraft of World War Two, by Basil Collier)
By: Graham Boak - 12th November 2012 at 21:59
Thelma was a licence-built Lockheed 14. The later Thalia was supposed to be independent of the Model 18 but is so similar that I have grave doubts. It was not however licence-built.
Surely the film maker was not trying to match any particular Japanese type, just using something convenient and WW2-ish.
By: Scouse - 12th November 2012 at 21:36
Which brings us full circle as the Ki56 was a Japanese development of the licence-built Lockheed 14 😀
By: wieesso - 12th November 2012 at 19:39
A clip showing a Beech 18 – “Letters from Iwo Jima”
http://finalflightthebook.com/Hollywood/Beech18-landing_LettersIwoJima1.AVI
Maybe the Beech 18 should represent a Kawasaki Ki-56
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/18/Kawasaki_Ki-56.jpg/800px-Kawasaki_Ki-56.jpg
By: Stony - 12th November 2012 at 18:52
Edit: Just done some Googling, and discover from Wikipedia (OK, not always 100% reliable) that the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army Air Force had 36 Lockheed 12s – even closer in looks to the Twin Beech, and some may well have fallen into Japanese hands.
I’m pretty sure the Japanese used some of the Lockheeds. I’ve seen a picture of a dumped Lockheed 12 in Japanese colours.This photo was taken by a dutch service man in the late 1940’s in the Dutch East Indies.
By: philip turland - 12th November 2012 at 16:05
post war only
Japanese Air Lines used AT-11 JAS 5101 from november 52.
JMSDF had 35 JRB-4’s
many references in the Beech 18 a civil & Military history by Bob Parmeter
no wartime for certain
philip
odd 2 beech 18 threads on the same afternoon
By: J Boyle - 12th November 2012 at 16:01
If the author’s aircraft recognition isn’t that brilliant, maybe he’s confused a Beech 18 with a Lockheed 14. Plenty of similarities to an inexpert eye, and Lockheed 14s were licence-built in Japan and had the Allied code-name Thelma.
I had thought of that (and mentioned it in my post on WIX), but it doesn’t explain how it got past Phillips. And the way it was written, he certainly presented it as a fact based on more than him seeing a plane in a film.
BTW: I point out the Japanese use of Lockheeds when people talk about allied solders finding Earhart’s plane on a island late in the war. Yes, they were larger Lodestars and not AE’s Electra, but again, many ground troops have never been experts on aircraft recognition.
By: Scouse - 12th November 2012 at 15:48
If the author’s aircraft recognition isn’t that brilliant, maybe he’s confused a Beech 18 with a Lockheed 14. Plenty of similarities to an inexpert eye, and Lockheed 14s were licence-built in Japan and had the Allied code-name Thelma.
Edit: Just done some Googling, and discover from Wikipedia (OK, not always 100% reliable) that the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army Air Force had 36 Lockheed 12s – even closer in looks to the Twin Beech, and some may well have fallen into Japanese hands.
By: J Boyle - 12th November 2012 at 15:42
There are none in Putnam’s Beech Aircraft and their predecessors, by AJ Pelletier. I did assume that there would have been some military ones postwar, hence the confusion, but apparently not.
Agreed. I also checked that book and those by Phillips. And I also checked Putnam’s Japanese Aircraft 1910-1941 by Mikesh and Abe.
A bit of trivia, Japan Air Lines did buy the final Beech 18s produced (in 1969-70) for use as multi-engine trainers.
I wonder what happened to those?
By: Graham Boak - 12th November 2012 at 15:26
There are none in Putnam’s Beech Aircraft and their predecessors, by AJ Pelletier. I did assume that there would have been some military ones postwar, hence the confusion, but apparently not.
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November 12, 2012 at 3:11 pm