Item Tag: 1925-1949

Colorized photo of Nakajima Ki 43 II Otsu Hayabusa (Oscar) 248 Sentai captured by US forces on Tadji airfield New Guinea 22nd April 1944. Sold as a downloadable digital image in dimensions 4096×3208 TIFF format 37.6MB. History: The Nakajima Ki-43 Hayabusa (隼, “Peregrine falcon”), formal Japanese designation Army Type 1 Fighter (一式戦闘機, Ichi-shiki sentōki) is a single-engine land-based tactical fighter used by the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service in World War II. The Allied reporting name was “Oscar”, but it was often called the “Army Zero” by American pilots because it bore a certain resemblance to the Mitsubishi A6M Zero,[3] the Imperial Japanese Navy’s counterpart to the Ki-43. Both aircraft had generally similar layout and lines, and also used essentially the same Nakajima Sakae radial engine, with similar round cowlings and bubble-type canopies (the Oscar’s being distinctly smaller and having much less framing than the A6M). While relatively easy for a trained eye to tell apart with the “finer” lines of the Ki-43’s fuselage – especially towards the tail – and more tapered wing planform; in the heat of battle, given the brief glimpses and distraction of combat, Allied aviators frequently made mistakes in enemy aircraft identification in the heat of a dogfight, reportedly having fought “Zeros” in areas where there were no Navy fighters. The 2rd image is Douglas C-47 Dakota 111 passes a destroyed Japanese Ki-43-II Oscar 63rd Sentai Cyclops Hollandia 28th Apr 1944. Japanese Zero belly landed in shallow water at Riales Leyte Philippines 29th Nov 1944