Who commanded Mitsubishi G3M crews?

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peter2010
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Who commanded Mitsubishi G3M crews?

#1

Post by peter2010 » 18 Oct 2014, 13:12

A question about the seven-member crews of Mitsubishi G3Ms: Some late-1930s documents seem to suggest that the crew was commanded not by the pilot, but by the navigator. Is this correct? Any ideas about how the functions were shared among the seven crew members?

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hisashi
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Re: Who commanded Mitsubishi G3M crews?

#2

Post by hisashi » 18 Oct 2014, 16:20

In 10 Dec 1941 Mihoro NAG sent 34 Nell to search and attack HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse. 25 of them were bomber, 8 torpedo attacker and the last one had no drop weapon just for keeping contact to any vessel found (eventually the last one was cancelled of its sortie but I explain based on the plan).

They organized them into 4 squadron (hiko chutai), subdivided into 3 or 4 kette (shotai) each. So each shotai had two or three pieces. 34 pieces to 13 shotai.

Each piece had 6 to 8 crew. Mostly 7. Typically the crew consisted of 2 pilots, 1 observer (bomb/torpedo operator), 3 radiomen/gun crew and 1 mechanic.

2 of 4 chutai leaders occupied one of pilot seat while the other 2 took on observer. The second senior man on those 4 plane, all warrant officer, took on the responsibility of shotai leader. For example 5th chutai leader 1st Lt.Usui Yoshimi was observer, so warrant officer Takaya Saiji occupied one of pilot seat and reported to Usui as the leader of 51th shotai.

5th chutai(Usui)
51st shotai(Takaya) 2 pieces (including Takaya and Usui's own Nell)
52nd shotai(Sato*) 3 pieces
53rd shotai(Inada) 2 pieces
54th shotai(Yamada*) 2 pieces
Sato and Yamada was on their observer seat, while Inada was a pilot.

Similarly, 7 of 13 shotai leaders were pilots and 6 were observers.

It seemed that in the beginning of war the commander might be a pilot or observer. It is not clear who was the commander when it was not a leader piece of any kind, but the most senior crew was either one of pilots or an observer.

I have heard that Lufwaffe had similar system. The multi-engine bomber leader was trained both as a pilot and an observer/radioman and often delegated the heavy task of pilot to others. But they became increasingly in short of experienced pilots so later leaders must took on pilot task by themselves. It looked plausible that the same thing occurred in IJN counterparts in the latter half of war.


peter2010
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Re: Who commanded Mitsubishi G3M crews?

#3

Post by peter2010 » 18 Oct 2014, 17:16

Hello Hisashi, thank you for an extremely informative and detailed reply. The parallel with the Luftwaffe is very interesting!

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