aiRcRaFT OF 129 Yasuho Izawa The aceS® with Tony Holmes J2M Raiden and n1K1/2 Shiden / Shiden-Kai aceS 11/01/2016 10:50 Authors Illustrator Yasuho Izawa is an ophthalmic optician whose past works Jim Laurier is a native of New England, growing up include co-authoring Japanese Army Air Force Fighter in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. He has been Units and their Aces 1931-45, Japanese Naval Air Force drawing since he could hold a pencil and throughout his Fighter Units and their Aces 1932-45 and Bloody Shambles life he has worked in many mediums creating artwork Vols 1 and 2. He lives in Tokyo. on a variety of subjects. He has worked on the Osprey Aviation list since 2000, and in that time he has produced Osprey Aviation Editor since 1989, Tony Holmes is some of the finest artwork seen in these volumes. a native of Fremantle, Western Australia. Responsible for devising the Aircraft of the Aces, Combat Aircraft, Elite Units and Duel series, Tony has also written more than 30 books for Osprey over the past 26 years. Other titles in the series ACE No: 13 • ISBN: 978 1 85532 529 6 ACE No: 22 • ISBN: 978 1 85532 727 6 ACE No: 85 • ISBN: 978 1 84603 408 4 ACE No: 100 • ISBN: 978 1 84908 440 6 ACE No: 103 • ISBN: 978 1 84908 662 2 ACE No: 114 • ISBN: 978 1 78096 295 5 ACE 129 cover-v2.indd 2 aiRcRaFT OF The aceS 129 J2M Raiden and n1K1/2 Shiden/Shiden-Kai aceS ACE_129.Layouts.v8.indd 1 11/01/2016 10:48 129 ACE_129.Layouts.v8.indd 2 11/01/2016 10:48 SerieS editor tony HolmeS 129 aiRcRaFT OF Yasuho Izawa with The aceS Tony Holmes J2M Raiden and n1K1/2 Shiden/ Shiden-Kai aceS ACE_129.Layouts.v8.indd 3 11/01/2016 10:48 This electronic edition published in 2016 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Osprey Publishing PO Box 883, Oxford, OX1 9PL, UK PO Box 3985, New York, NY 10185-3985, USA E-mail: [email protected] Osprey Publishing, part of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc © 2016 Osprey Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrical, chemical, mechanical, optical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission. All enquiries should be addressed to the publisher. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978 1 4728 1261 2 PDF e-book ISBN: 978 1 4728 1262 9 e-Pub ISBN: 978 1 4728 1263 6 Front Cover Edited by Tony Holmes Whilst escorting the final kamikaze Cover Artwork by Mark Postlethwaite operation against US navy vessels off Aircraft Profiles by Jim Laurier okinawa on 22 June 1945, 31 n1K2-J Shiden-Kais of the 343rd Kokutai clashed Index by Mark Swift with 18 Corsairs from VmF-113 that were Originated by PDQ Digital Media Solutions, UK flying a combat air patrol in search of suicide aircraft. the fighter formations became embroiled in a fierce engagement northeast of Amami oshima, 150 miles north of okinawa and at the very limit Osprey Publishing supports the Woodland Trust, the UK’s leading woodland of the Shiden-Kai’s range. the 343rd conservation charity. Between 2014 and 2018 our donations will be spent on their subsequently claimed seven Corsairs Centenary Woods project in the UK. destroyed for the loss of four pilots, including Sento 407th Hikotai Co lt Keijiro Hayashi (who had ‘made ace’ by downing www.ospreypublishing.com  an FG-1d shortly before his own demise). VmF-113 lost two aircraft and had three more badly damaged. Acknowledgements one of the latter was the fighter flown Yasuho Izawa would like to thank 343rd Kokutai pilots Susumu Itoh, Ryoji Oh-hara by 2lt Alton C Frazer, who possibly shot and Tomiya Miyazaki for their assistance in the preparation of this volume. The Hayashi down. Frazer was then targeted by Sento 301st Hikotai Co, and 25-victory published works of Yoji Watanabe on the J2M Raiden, the 302nd Kokutai and the ace, lt naoshi Kanno in his audaciously Defence of the Homeland have also proven to be invaluable, as has the outstanding marked Shiden-Kai. ‘i began to notice that book Genda’s Blade by Henry Sakaida and Koji Takaki. Tony Holmes would like to my left wing was disintegrating’, Frazer later recalled. ‘i heard no shots, i heard no thank the authors of that book for allowing him to use quotes and photographs in gunfire, but i became visually aware that this volume. Thank you also to publishers Robert Forsyth and Eddie Creek at Classic my left wing was coming apart’. despite Publications for providing the authors with access to the photographs, and also to being set upon by a second n1K2-J after diving away from Kanno, Frazer managed Philip Jarrett for the provision of extra images. Finally, thank you to librarian Hiroko to nurse his battered Corsair back to ie Izumiyama of Japan’s Military History Department Library for locating relevant Shima, northwest of okinawa (Cover material for inclusion in this book. artwork by Mark Postlethwaite) ACE_129.Layouts.v8.indd 4 11/01/2016 10:48 c O n T e n T S CHAPTER ONE The need FOR inTeRcePTORS 6 CHAPTER TWO KaWaniShi FiGhTeRS 16 CHAPTER THREE n1K1 KyOFu and J2M Raiden in cOMbaT 23 CHAPTER FOUR n1K1-J Shiden in cOMbaT 54 CHAPTER FIVE n1K2-J Shiden-Kai in cOMbaT 63 aPPendiceS 93 COLOUR PLATES COMMENTARY 93 INDEX 96 ACE_129.Layouts.v8.indd 5 11/01/2016 10:48 6 CHAPTER ONE THE NEED FOR INTERCEPTORS CHaPTER ONE The need FOR inTeRcePTORS ‘T he lead aircraft looked to have finished his attack. The target A total of eight development prototype aircraft filled my gunsight. I aimed at the B-29 to the right side J2ms were built by mitsubishi, with this example being the sixth completed. these of the tail element. The distance shortened to 400 metres, then aircraft were initially fitted with an 300. I gripped the firing lever. The four 20 mm guns spat fire in unison. extremely shallow, curved windscreen Tracers flew, trailing red tails. I aimed at the wing root of the B-29. I saw and canopy in an attempt to reduce drag. However, mitsubishi test pilot Katsuzo the shells explode. After finishing the attack, I formed up with the lead Shima stated after his first flight in the aircraft. The B-29 emitted white smoke. I did it! The second and fourth aircraft that the forward view was totally aircraft formed up with us. LA Kinzo Kasuya, our fourth man, was my unacceptable and that the curved windscreen badly distorted vision. the good friend. We finished our second passes and assembled, but I did not sixth prototype was evaluated by the Air see Kasuya again.’ Arsenal at Suzuka and then fitted with So wrote LA Shokichi Kurumoto of the 343rd Kokutai (Air Corps – redesigned cockpit glazing, including a flat windscreen panel, and sent to the 302nd roughly equivalent in size to an RAF group) following his attack on a ten- Kokutai for further trials (via Philip Jarrett) strong formation of B-29s from the USAAF’s 314th Bomb Wing high over northern Kyushu on 5 May 1945. Part of Lt Goro Ichimura’s division, Kurumoto was at the controls of a Kawanishi N1K2-J Shiden-Kai, the Imperial Japanese Naval Air Force’s premier piston-engined fighter. Along with Mitsubishi’s less successful J2M Raiden, the Shiden-Kai proved to be one of only a handful of Japanese fighters capable of intercepting the high-flying Superfortresses targeting the home islands in the final year of the war. ACE_129.Layouts.v8.indd 6 11/01/2016 10:48 CHAPTER ONE THE NEED FOR INTERCEPTORS 7 The development of both aircraft had been lengthy due to technical problems and poor project management. However, once the Raiden and the Shiden-Kai began to reach frontline units in larger numbers from early 1945, their superiority over the IJNAF’s staple wartime fighter, the A6M Zero-sen, became glaringly obvious – especially to USAAF and US Navy aircrews that encountered them. When the IJN had launched its daring, and devastating, surprise attack on the US Navy’s Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, the Zero-sen was the world’s best naval fighter by some considerable margin. It retained a position of dominance until late 1943, when a new generation of American naval fighters in the form of the Vought F4U Corsair and F6F Hellcat wrested control of the skies from the IJNAF. With the Zero-sen’s replacement delayed by technical problems and the vacillations of senior naval officers, frontline units were forced to fight on with the increasingly obsolescent A6M – Mitsubishi had done its best to keep the aircraft as CHaPTER ONE combat effective as possible with continual improvements to its armament and a series of more powerful engines. The need FOR What was needed was an all-new fighter, or fighters, and Mitsubishi had in fact been working on just such a machine for quite some time. Whereas the Zero-sen had been the culmination of a decade of experience inTeRcePTORS accrued by Mitsubishi in building carrier-based fighters for the IJN, its new aircraft would be a land-based machine as requested by the Naval Staff. In a radical departure in IJNAF fighter design thinking, Mitsubishi was instructed to build an aeroplane that stressed speed and rate of climb over manoeuvrability and range. Jiro Horikoshi and his design team initially discussed the new interceptor with the IJN’s Bureau of Aeronautics in October 1938 as part of the 14-Shi armament programme, but Mitsubishi’s preoccupation with the A6M saw the aircraft shelved until September of the following year when an official specification was finally drawn up. The performance parameters called for a maximum speed of 373 mph at 19,685 ft, the ability to attain this altitude within 5.5 minutes, endurance of 45 minutes at full power, a takeoff run at overloaded weight in nil-wind conditions not exceeding 985 ft and a landing speed no greater than 81 mph. Armament would consist of two 20 mm cannon and two 7.7 mm machine guns (as fitted in the A6M2), and for the first time armour protection was requested for the pilot in the form of plating behind the seat. In production aircraft, a small piece of 8 mm armour plating was fitted aft of the pilot’s head protecting just the base of his neck. The need for an interceptor that could engage high-flying enemy aircraft was graphically underlined just weeks after the 14-Shi specification was drawn up. On 3 October 1939, Soviet Ilyushin DB-3 long-range bombers being flown by ‘volunteer’ crews targeted Japanese forces at Hankow airfield during the conflict in China. Attacking from a height of 23,300 ft, nine DB-3s delivered their ordnance with relative impunity as the defending IJNAF Mitsubishi A5M fighters struggled to intercept the high-flying Soviet bombers. Although most of the bombs dropped fell short of the target, one exploded amongst a group of assembled personnel, killing 12. Eleven days later, a repeat raid on Hankow by 20 DB-3s destroyed no fewer than 60 aeroplanes on the ground. Again, the defending A5Ms struggled ACE_129.Layouts.v8.indd 7 11/01/2016 10:48 8 CHAPTER ONE THE NEED FOR INTERCEPTORS to intercept the bombers, although on this occasion the IJNAF pilots claimed two shot down – three DB-3s were damaged. Clearly, a fighter with better high altitude performance and a greater rate of climb was urgently needed. The key to the 14-Shi’s performance would be its engine, and Jiro Horikoshi was given a free hand in choosing the powerplant for his new design. Both the Daimler- Benz DB 601A-inspired V12 Aichi Ha-60 Atsuta, rated at 1200 hp, and the 1430 hp Mitsubishi Ha-32 Kasei (‘Mars’) Model 13 radial engine were evaluated, and Hirokoshi chose the latter despite its greater weight, larger frontal area and higher fuel the heart of the raiden – the mitsubishi mK4r-A Kasei model 23a engine, rated consumption. This would ultimately prove to be an unfortunate choice. at 1870 hp on takeoff. in order to Assisted by Yoshitoshi Sone and Kiro Takahashi, Horikoshi began detail minimise the drag associated with the design work in early January 1940 on what by this time bore the Service 14-cylinder air-cooled radial, an extension shaft was introduced to drive a 10 ft 6 in Aeroplane Development Programme Number M-20. The new fighter was diameter three-bladed propeller. this an all-metal cantilever low-wing monoplane, the wing having a single allowed the cowling to be finely tapered mainspar at 35 per cent chord and smooth flush-riveted stressed skinning. (as can be seen here), with an engine- driven fan sucking cooling air through The metal-framed control surfaces on both the wings and tail were fabric- a narrow annular intake. the Kasei covered, however. The wing was of low aspect ratio and employed a laminar suffered from numerous technical flow aerofoil section. The fuselage was an oval-section semi-monocoque. In problems throughout the J2m’s less than successful service career order to minimise the drag of the Kasei 14-cylinder engine, an extension shaft was introduced to drive the 10 ft 6 in diameter three-bladed propeller. This allowed the cowling to be finely tapered, with an engine-driven fan sucking cooling air through a narrow annular intake. In a further attempt to reduce drag, an extremely shallow, curved windscreen and canopy were adopted. The aircraft was also fitted with Fowler combat flaps to increase lift with the minimum of drag when extended, thus improving manoeuvrability. Finally, in an effort to simplify manufacture, forged components were used wherever possible. Mitsubishi’s focus on development and production of the A6M combined with teething troubles suffered by the engine cooling system and the laminar flow aerofoil section to delay the completion of the M-20 prototypes until February 1942. By then the overworked Horikoshi had relinquished the post of Mitsubishi’s chief designer to Takahashi. Designated the J2M1 and christened the Raiden (Thunderbolt), the first prototype made its maiden flight from Kasumigaura on 20 March 1942. Mitsubishi test pilot Katsuzo Shima expressed his general satisfaction with the aeroplane in respect to its stability and controllability throughout its entire speed range. However he stated that the forward view was totally unacceptable and that the curved windscreen badly distorted vision. It was also discovered that the undercarriage would not retract at speeds in excess of 100 mph. By the end of May 1942 Mitsubishi had completed four J2M1 prototypes, and these were transferred without any changes (bar a modification to the ACE_129.Layouts.v8.indd 8 11/01/2016 10:49