KITS 07/2023
Kōkūtai 452, Kiska island, Aleutians, early 1943
This Rufe got dark green paint at the unit level.
The camouflage later showed signs of wear,
especially on the wing and on the rear fuselage
around the horizontal tail surfaces. The aircraft
of this fighter unit successively bore at least four
different markings on the tail surfaces, depending
on how the unit was designated and subordinated
to different commands. Its most successful
fighter was the CPO Gi-ichi Sasaki. The native
from Miyagi Prefecture joined the Navy in 1937.
He became a pilot of two-seat float planes and
participated in combat in China. He took part in
the conquest of the Philippines and the Dutch East
Indies on board of the Mizuho seaplane tender.
After its sinking, he was assigned to the Tōkō
Kōkūtai in the Aleutians, which was eventually
renamed the 5th Kōkūtai and then Kōkūtai 452.
He achieved a total of four individual victories –
five shared and one aircraft credited shared as
probably destroyed. He was killed on February
19, 1943, over Amchitka Island in a dogfight with
a Curtiss P-40 pilot.
Seaman 1st class, Takio Maruyama, aviation unit of seaplane tender Kamikawa Maru,
Shortland, September 1942
This plane was early production Rufe with folding
wingtips. The Kamikawa Maru was completed
in 1936 as an ocean liner but was converted to
a seaplane tender a year later and was combat
deployed in the aggression against China until
the spring of 1941. At the start of the fighting in
the Pacific, her air unit was equipped with E13A1
Jake and F1M2 Pete seaplanes, but by September
1942 she was deployed in the Solomon Islands
July 2023
area with eleven A6M2-Ns and two F1M2s. The
main tasks of her airmen were base protection,
convoy escorts and also attacks on ground troops
on Guadalcanal. In addition to engagements with
B-17s and Cactus Air Force pilots, the Kamikawa
Maru airmen also got into combat with aircraft
from the USS Hornet (CV-8). One of them was
Takio Maruyama. He was credited with one
victory over a B-17 bomber. The Kamikawa Maru
and Maruyama’s performance with the No. 107
aircraft was cited in a letter of commendation
by the Commander of the Combined Fleet in
September 1942. Maruyama with machine YII-107
was killed on October 10, 1942, in a dogfight with
VMF-223 Wildcats while escorting Japanese
vessels from the so-called Tokyo Express bound
for Guadalcanal. On board the light cruiser
Tatsuta was Lt. Gen. Hyakutake.
INFO Eduard
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