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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