World War 2 In Review: Japanese Air Power in View

Nakajima Ki.27a “Nate.”

Nakajima Ki.27b Type 97 Model B "Nate" Akeno Fighter Training School.

Nakajima Ki.27b Type 97 Model B "Nate."

Nakajima Ki.27b “Nate.”

Nakajima Ki.27 “Nate,” 1st Chutai, 59th Sentai, Manchuria, 1939.

A captured Japanese Nakajima Ki-43 Hayabusa (Peregrine Falcon) fighter parked by a sandy landing strip, somewhere in Papua New Guinea during World War II. Allied code name “Oscar.”

Nakajima Kikka.

Pilot of a Japanese Ki-48 bomber preparing for a mission, date unknown.

Japanese Ki-77(A-26) carried on USS Bogue, 25 December 1945.

Captured Japanese A6M5 Zeros on board USS Copahee on their way to the US from Saipan, July 1944.

Anti-aircraft gunners, center foreground, pour a deadly stream of fire into an already-burning Japanese Kamikaze plane plummeting toward the flight deck of the USS Sangamon, a Navy escort carrier, during action in the Ryukyu Islands near Japan, on May 4, 1945. This suicide plane landed in the sea close to the carrier. Another Japanese aircraft later succeeded in hitting the ship deck, inflicting heavy damage.

Kawasaki Ki-48, date unknown.

Head-on view of a Ki-48 aircraft, date unknown.

Forward view of a Ki-48 aircraft, date unknown.

Ki-48 aircraft at an airfield, date unknown.

Ki-48 aircraft with bomb bay doors open, date unknown.

A group of Ki-48 aircraft in flight, date unknown.

Another view of the same group of Ki-48 aircraft in flight, date unknown.

Instrument panel of a Ki-48 aircraft, date unknown.

Kawasaki Ki-102b “Randy” cockpit.

A destroyed Kawanishi N1K1-J at Yontan Airfield, Okinawa, May 1945. Marines are using the shell hole in the foreground for bathing.

Nakajima Ki.27b Type 97 Model B, "Nate", 246th Fighter Sentai, activated October 1942 for home defense.

Nakajima Ki.27 Type 97 “Nate” fighter.

Nakajima Ki.27, 59th Sentai, Manchuria, 1939.

Nakajima Ki.27 “Nate.”

Nakajima Ki-27 Ko 84th Dokuritsu Hiko-Chutai Japanese Army Air Service, Canton, China, 1939.

Nakajima Ki-27 and Polikarpov I-15bis in combat during the Khalkin Gol/Nomonhan incident, 1939.

Ki-48 aircraft preparing for takeoff, date unknown.

Nose machine gun position of a Ki-48 bomber, date unknown.

Nose gunner of a Ki-48 aircraft exiting his position, date unknown.

Ki-48 aircraft releasing a bomb, date unknown. The ventral gun position is opened, as seen in the photo below.

Ventral machine gun position of a Ki-48 light bomber, date unknown.

Close-up of the nose of a Ki-48 light bomber in flight, date unknown.

Ki-48 aircraft being serviced, date unknown. Note starter truck at extreme right.

Bomb Damage Assessment photo of destroyed Ki-48 bombers at a Japanese airstrip in northern New Guinea, 1942-1943; note open parachutes in upper center.