Masaaki Iinuma

[Peter H]

April 1937:

Mitsubishi Type 97 (Ki125) J-BAAI 'Kamikaze' is flown by Masaaki Iinuma, with Kenji Tsukagoshi as his navigator, from Tashikawa to Croydon to capture the Japan to England record. The flight takes 51 hours 17minutes 23 seconds and covers a distance of 15,356 kilometres (9,542 miles).

More here:

http://www.ne.jp/asahi/airplane/museum/ ... IKAZE.html


Masaaki(1912-1941) was later killed flying over Malaya, December 1941.

Does anyone know what happened to Kenji Tsukagoshi?


Photo from Corbis of the Kamikaze arriving in England(via Formosa, Indo-China, India, Iraq, Greece, Italy, France).

[Peter H]

Photos of "Kamikaze" here:

http://plaza.rakuten.co.jp/zerosenochibo/diary/?ctgy=3



Masaaki Iinuma and Kenji Tsukagoshi

[hisashi]

塚越謙爾 departed Singapore trying a flight to Germany by army aircraft A-26 in July 7, 1943, and was missing.

[Carl Schwamberger]

A flight to Germany? That is intriguing. Is there any information of the flight plan? I am guessing the initial destination after departing Singapore would be Afganistan or Turkey for refueling?

What was the purpose of the flight?

[Peter H]

The flight was made with the experimental Tachikawa Ki-77.Only two protoypes were made. Kenji's aircraft disappeared over the Indian Ocean.One rumour is that RAF fighters shot it down.It had already flown nonstop from Tokyo to Singapore.Supposedly it was heading for the German occupied Crimea,then onto Berlin.

http://avia.russian.ee/air/japan/tachikawa_ki-77.php

The second prototype completed a triangular test flight of 10,212 miles(in 57 hours) over Manchuria in 1944.

The aircraft was designed to fly nonstop from Tokyo to New York.
Refer here as well: http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 693#301693




http://www.j-aircraft.com/gallery/army/ ... i-77_a.jpg

[Peter H]

From ebay,seller Opix

German postcard of Iinuma.

It also appears Iinuma's death in combat is not so clear-cut:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masaaki_Iinuma

Iinuma was killed in December 1941 at Phnom Penh airfield when, in a daze from hearing the news of the Pearl Harbor bombing, he accidentally walked into a spinning aircraft propeller. His death was officially reported as a military casualty.

[Peter H]

神風号--Kamikaze-go

[Peter H]

From ebay,seller messerschmitt*109