I am trying to help a friend of mine, John Sinclair, find out about a unit his father served in in the RAF in 1918/1919. It’s an interesting story but can you add more at all? John’s father was Ronald James Sinclair (referred to as RJS below), a New Zealander who served in the RFC, RAF, NZAF/TAF and RNZAF. Here are extracts from his email which explain all…
“At the end of WW1, two ranking Japanese Naval Officers were sent to England to train and gain their Wings. – this was in 1918, and they graduated in 1919, I believe at an airbase called Netheravon.
One was M Sakamoto, and the other T Onishi,and I dont know how or why,but they and RJS became firm friends so much so that at the end of the course they presented him with signed portrate photographs and a set of gold cufflinks – Dad claimed that he helped teach them to fly, but his logbook gives no indication of that.
However Onishi went on to become Admiral Onishi “Founder of the Kamikaze Squadrens” in WW11,vehemently oposing the surrender, and committing Hari Kari at surrender, refused to be dispatched by his second, and took 8 hours to die.
To get back to the question of the RAF flight you will see Sakamoto and Onishi in their dark uniforms, and RJS second from the left front row, also in the shot are I believe 1 maybe 2 NZrs, several Australians,and one Russian ,so they were quite a mixed bunch.
I wrote to the RAF requesting information on the flight depicted, and confermation of Onishi’s time with the RAF.
They wrote back claiming that they had no knowledge of Onishi and that records had been lost.
I have read two books on the Kamikaze – the first mentioned that Onishi went to England for two years but failed to mention what he did there, and the second by an Englishman, Raymond Lamont-Brown made no mention of the RAF connection – my letter to Brown in the packet.
He wrote back, saying the information was interesting, but was not forthcoming on any facts.
Maybe the records realy are lost?????????
Dont know what happened to Sakamoto, but Dad thought he ended up as a U Boat Comander.”
By: Dave Homewood - 24th August 2006 at 13:14
Further to this case, I now have a copy of the photo, which may spark some more interest.
In this unit you can see T. Onishi and M. Sakamoto, and there’s a Russian who was called Chekoorsky by the look of his signature in the copy of the letter John sent me.
Onishi is the Japanese officer on the right, Sakamoto the left in the photo. I guess the Russian is on the righthand end? And is that chap sitting, second from left, an America?
Note two Kiwis in the front too.
Close ups – does anyone recognise the faces? (slim chance I know…)
By: Dave Homewood - 21st August 2006 at 04:28
Thanks very much for that information DJJ, I will pass it onto John, I’m sure he’ll be keen to follow it up. Cheers.
By: DJJ - 20th August 2006 at 23:57
Dave,
There was certainly some training conducted by the RAF, and there is a document ‘Statement of Russian, Japanese, Brazilian, Roumanian and French pilots trained by the R.A.F.’ dated 10 November 1918 in the National Archives at Kew Gardens (AIR 1/39/15/5). I would guess that your two chaps were involved there at about this time. There is a fair chance that the records could be ‘lost’ in that file (there is so much in Air 1 that files do sometimes have a little more inside them than the contents list suggests), or it is quite possible that the file was weeded as being of no apparent interest.
This would explain why the IJN, when it became enthusiastic about aircraft carriers, turned to Britain and why the Master of Sempill led a (ostensibly civilian) mission to Japan to train pilots, etc, etc in about 1920. There may be some detail in John Ferris, ‘A British “Unofficial” Aviation Mission and Japanese Naval Developments 1919-29’ in the Journal of Strategic Studies, Volume 5, Number 3 (1982) pages 416-39.
By the by Sempill was suspected of ‘going native’ in Japan. There are two Security Service files on him (in the National Archives) as part of their ‘Japanese Intelligence Agents and Suspected Agents’ list of files….
By: Dave Homewood - 20th August 2006 at 12:01
By the way, Onishi’s full name was Takajiro Onishi
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August 20, 2006 at 11:57 am