Japanese Airborne Operations in World War II.

[Peter H]

Tower

[ijnfleetadmiral]

These units were collated into the 1st Raiding Group under MGEN (later LTGEN) Tsukada Rikichi on 21 November 1944.

FWIW,

-Matt

Tsukada Rikichi
Army Academy Class unknown (class ranking unknown)
Promoted 2nd Lieutenant - 1916
Promoted Lieutenant - date unknown
Promoted Captain - date unknown
Promoted Major - date unknown
Promoted Lieutenant Colonel - date unknown
Promoted Colonel - date unknown
Chief-of-Staff, 1st Air Division - 1 December 1939 - 15 April 1942
Promoted Major General - 1942
Chief-of-Staff, 3rd Air Army - 14 February 1944 - 8 August 1944
Commanding Officer, 1st Raiding Group - 21 November 1944 - 30 September 1945
Promoted Lieutenant General - March 1945

[Papa Nambu]

Has anyone seen a wartime photo showing the Type 2 paratrooper rifle? I've never seen a photo of Japanese paratroopers with this rifle. I don't doubt that they were used, but in the few photos I've seen with any rifles, they are either too far away or using regular rifles.

[Fatboy Coxy]

Tower

OK Guys, anyone know how this worked.

I can see a metal outline for a parachute canopy suspended on wires, did this hold an open parachute and both soldier and chute were pulled up and then dropped?, or something else?

Steve

[Orwell1984]

Tower

OK Guys, anyone know how this worked.

I can see a metal outline for a parachute canopy suspended on wires, did this hold an open parachute and both soldier and chute were pulled up and then dropped?, or something else?

Steve

You can watch one in action here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=en ... EJnZP0PNPM

[Fatboy Coxy]

Thank you Orwell1984, how dumb am I for not knowing this. Any idea who first came up with these jump towers.

Steve

[kgbudge]

Jumping from captive balloons, as a carnival stunt, dated back to the 1880s. It's not a huge conceptual jump from there to jumping from a large tower, bu the earliest mention I can find is to jump towers built by Safe Parachute Company in New Jersey well before war broke out in 1939. These were taken over by the U.S. Army for its jump training.