Aviation discussion

[TaiwanTeacher]

Re: China Air - I gather they have sorted out some of their troubles after the 737 burned up on the ground due to a leading edge slat bolt puncturing the fuel tank.
Yours is the first I've heard of the EVA cargo hitting a regional jet. Interesting...

So.... how about helping to put together a record of all Japanese kamikaze fields and air groups in Taiwan along with the sorties they flew? If one exists, it must be in Japanese, which I cannot read. I can't find a map of them.
Examples:
1) Two airfields believed to be in Hualian, three believed to be in Yilan, but have only found locations of one each.
2) Supposedly they staged to an airfield offshore at times; was it on Yanaguni, Ishigaki, Okinawa... where???
3) Aircraft flown? I see they had Ki 43, Ki 61, and Ki 100. Anything else?
4) Units may or may not include elements of: 17th, 19th, 20th, 24th, 26th, 105th, and 204th.
5) All dates I have for assignments are in early to mid-1945. Anything before that?

[tommy525]

EVA clipping

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/05/30/ ... -at-ohare/

EVA following China Airlines and taking off from a taxiway in Anchorage (Ci had done it with an Airbus A340 once, just missing a snow berm on take off)

http://www.aviationpros.com/news/104049 ... tl-airport

[Super Hans]

So.... how about helping to put together a record of all Japanese kamikaze fields and air groups in Taiwan along with the sorties they flew? If one exists, it must be in Japanese, which I cannot read. I can't find a map of them.
Examples:
1) Two airfields believed to be in Hualian, three believed to be in Yilan, but have only found locations of one each.
2) Supposedly they staged to an airfield offshore at times; was it on Yanaguni, Ishigaki, Okinawa... where???
3) Aircraft flown? I see they had Ki 43, Ki 61, and Ki 100. Anything else?
4) Units may or may not include elements of: 17th, 19th, 20th, 24th, 26th, 105th, and 204th.
5) All dates I have for assignments are in early to mid-1945. Anything before that?

I've been to the one in YiLan.
There is also an airfield in a place called Huwei in central Taiwan. Been there as well, but there is little left of the runway which was unpaved. The military villages surrounding the airfield which are now abandoned still show evidence of allied strafing. After WW2 the base became a flight training school. It's an interesting historical place to visit.
The physical sites of the one's in Hualian I am unable to locate.
I'm also trying to find some defector aircraft from China that are still in Taiwan. Some are now on display but a few Cold War era aircraft are still kept on live sites. I have located 3 on the missile test base down in Pingdong county, but have been unable to get to see them.

[TaiwanTeacher]

Location of Karenko South in Hualian:
http://taiwanairpower.org/blog/?p=2273& ... ent-153602

Map of Japanese bases in Taiwan (Do you have a translator available to romanize them all and convert to the JAPANESE names?):
http://taiwanairpower.org/blog/wp-conte ... fields.jpg

A couple of references I'd like to lay my hands on:
http://www.worldcat.org/title/civil-aff ... lc/2732363
http://books.google.com.tw/books?id=Ra- ... ko&f=false

List of Japanese Navy Kamikazes losses with airbase references:
http://wgordon.web.wesleyan.edu/kamikaz ... /index.htm

List of missions, showing origins in Taichung, Tainan, Ishigaki, Yilan:
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~un3k-mn/sinpu-his002.htm

More info on Japanese airfields on Formosa, and the US bombing missions against them:
http://www.pacificwrecks.com/provinces/formosa.html

[TaiwanTeacher]

I ran through the other maps I have from that era, and I have several more clues to locations, if you are interested in exploring some of them.
For example, I think I have two airfields in Yilan/Gilan now, but one was not completed.
I also have several Japanese place names and specific locations for airfields that might otherwise be referred to as "Tainan", "Kaohsiung/Takao", or "Taipei/Taihoku", etc. in Western references to them, such as Matsuyama, Toko and Toshien (where the last combat loss B-24 "Becomin' Home" was shot down by flack in July '45).

[maunaloa]

In the final months of WWII, Nimitz and King wanted to invade Formosa, and MacArthur wanted to invade P.I..... the famous Army in the West, Navy in the East, two prong strategy. MacArthur won that argument. He had lost the first round, called Guadalcanal, when the Navy went on the offense long before D.M. and Ike. Rather... the Marines went on the offensive, since the Navy's admirals had to be replaced in toto, from Ghormley down, before the Navy attacked in the Solomons.

[maunaloa]

Forgot to add... Taiwan's kamikaze contribution was minor.

[maunaloa]

Thanks, TT.

[TaiwanTeacher]

There is an edit function; it should be to the right of your by-line for the post.

The list of Kamikaze bases from W. Gordon is incomplete, as is the list (in Japanese) of Kamikaze "NAVY" bases shown in my previous link(s).
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~un3k-mn/sinpu-his002.htm
And, they seem to have things "bass-ackwards".

They provide the same locations: Tainan[Tainan], Taichu[Taichung], and Giran[Yilan] (with the Japanese reference adding Shinchiku "New Bamboo"[Hsinchu]). I believe those are only refering to kamikazes from ARMY missions (though they could be combined missions??), and are a list of only three/four "regional" ARMY airbases, perhaps used for assembly of a kamikaze attack, and not making note of the 33 or so Army airfields that existed in total. One example is the June 7th 1945 mission from Ishigaki [aka Stone](an island off the east coast of Taiwan) which lists that the planes originated in Giran[Yilan], an army base. Karenko North and Karenko South (where I live) are examples of such airbases. I have no confirmed records yet of ARMY kamikazes from Formosa (for some reason the records I've found list them as NAVY???), but local historians testify that Army planes flew such missions from Karenko[Hualian]. Aerial photos from a USN carrier-based recce mission comfirm Army-type twin engined bombers were at Karenko South in Jan 1945, while the kamikaze attack plans were underway. Others items indicate that the bases had Ki.43II Ki.43III, Ki.45, Ki.61, Ki.84, and Ki.100 ARMY fighters stationed here.

The NAVY also had airbases on Formosa, some 20 bases are on the map. They are the ones shown with a square containing a "Y". The others are Army.
http://taiwanairpower.org/blog/wp-conte ... fields.jpg

With my slight understanding of Japanese Military Heirarchy, it's totally possible that the Navy took credit for what were in fact ARMY kamikaze flights!

[TaiwanTeacher]

Re: Invasion of Formosa - The plan was code named "Causeway".
http://www.eurekaencyclopedia.com/index ... e_Mainland