The following photos come from a local Cambridge man Roy Paton who was in the Pacific as a Flight Engineer. They depict four of the five Japanese aircraft that the RNZAF was officially given possession of at the cessation of hostilities. They got two Zeros (an A6M3 which is now in the Auckland War Memorial Museum, and an A6M5), a Dinah, a Jake floatplane and a Kate.
I think these shots may well be quite rare. They are not in the best of condition and as yet I have not attempted to enhance or restore them at all. I hope you all find them of interest.
Oh, and if you’re wondering, the crosses on the aircraft were green and denoted a surrendered aircraft.
By: JDK - 22nd May 2004 at 13:50
War prizes, like a lot of other excellent books is very (very very) weak on the Pacific war. As ever, it’s rather Eurocentric. That said, the Pacific Wrecks & Relics book from the 70s was quite good to give a scope of what happened in 1945. Anyone ever listed the ATAIU SEA* aircraft?
Cheers
*Allied Technical Air Intelligence Unit, South East Asia – as painted on the IWM Zero among many others.
By: Dave Homewood - 22nd May 2004 at 09:41
Interesting Geoff, I wonder why they have been missed. they’re not exactly unknown.
There’s a good possibility that they may still be sitting there, rotting away along with many other treasures in the Pacific. I wonder why more aircraft haven’t been recovered from some of the islands – when you see what they have done with some of the wrecks from Russia, surely many of the aircraft there could be used as a basis for restoration. And perhaps recovery of wrecks could be a good moneyspinner for the impoverished Pacific economies. I know the climates are different between Russia and the pacific, but there have been a handful of successful recoveries of wrecked Pacific aircraft that have been put back into the air – including those associated with Charles Darby and his team (several P40’s and a soon-to-fly P47). So why are so many rare Japanese and Allied aircraft still left to the elements?
Does ‘War Prizes’ mention the ME109E that the RNZAF had? Or the Albatross that NZ got after WWI. Sadly both were destroyed after WWII when the Canterbury Museum decided they wouldn’t house them. Absolute idiots. The Albatross had been in the museum there for some time but the current management were apparently pascifists after the war and decided to burn the extremely valuable aircraft 😮 🙁
By: von Perthes - 22nd May 2004 at 09:01
Dave,
There’s nothing on any of these, apart from the extant Zeke, in ‘War Prizes’ not even a photo.
Geoff.
By: Dave Homewood - 22nd May 2004 at 07:40
These aircraft were surrendered at Rabaul, but they were all flown to Jaquinot Bay where the RNZAF had a base. An RNZAF pilot flew the Jake, while the rest were flown by Japanese pilots.
The RNZAF only brought the one Zero (and the engines, propellors and instruments of the Dinah) home because there was a lack of shipping space for the rest. Apparently the Jake sank at its moorings a month or so after arriving there, but one book I have says that Dinah and the Kate, along with two Zeros that were owned by the RAAF, were still at the same place as recently as 1972. The fate of the RNZAF’s second Zero isn’t known.
Does anyone know which Zero is pictured above? Is it the A6M3 or A6M5 – they all look the same to me. 🙂
here’s the last shot of the Jake with a Catalina.
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May 22, 2004 at 7:07 am