StoriesDiscuss IJA Secret Intelligence Team at Chofu in the World War II - Aviation forums; Thank You Aaron and everyone for 2008.
Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year!!!...
Hi, Wayne! A Happy New Year!
I envy you are enjoying the summer in Australia.
I am almost freezing here...
Hi, Vassili! Yes, it's a F-16. I'm glad you have understood it soon. Thanks.
My skill seems no so bad
I was going to make F-2, a variant of F-16, but there were less information about the mechanism.
F-2 may follow in the future, though.
My next translation for this thread will be Article No.17 in which a Grumman carrys out emergency landing on an IJA airfield. Please look forward.
We Japanese traditionally say the seasonal greeting when the new year has come. A Happy New Year to All!
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Article No.17
A Second National Soldier
====================
Author: Mr. Teruo Miyoshi
It was early January of 1945. Chief of Communication Room came to visit our standby room with a new Private soldier.
"Today, First Class Private A(name) has been assigned to our communication team. Please take care of him well." Chief of Communication Room introduced him. The new comer stated his formal greeting and we encouraged him saying "Do your best." However, in my frank impression, I was surprised at his age of late 30s or early 40s which was not necessarily young for the rank of Private that was given soon after the draft. I wondered if the young soldiers were getting so few in Japan as to summon such an old man at last.
As our team was adopting Elitism and proud of our staff who were all experts of any specific field with each exceeding skills, I was very suspicious about what kind of role Chief of Communication Room was going to give him. Then I tried to ask
"What is the new comer to take charge, sir?"
"For his first draft medical checkup in the past, Private A had been disqualified because he was suffering from infiltration of the lungs, but for his second checkup this time, he has passed it to be summoned here as a Second National Soldier. There is no worry about his disease any longer. For some time, he takes charge of delivering communication texts between the communication room and the cipher room along with some relating jobs."
There was no explanation about what he was in Shaba.
(In the Army, outer free society was called 'Shaba’ which is originally a Buddhistic term)
Therefore, I did not know at all then that I was to have a big shame later.
Several days later. A warning of alert was issued. When I was helping to move the aircrafts which were under maintenance into hangars and covering the runway approach lights to camouflage, Grummans suddenly appeared from the top of the cedar forest with the altitude of about 150 feet and started shooting us fiercely with big sounds.
(We camouflaged the runway approach lights because it took a few days to recover the electrical wirings once they were damaged.)
It was not unusual for me to be shot during flights but the sound of rushing bullets was not heard as the engine sound was bigger. It was very eerie to hear it on the ground sounding zing, zing.
Despite there was no official issue of the warning of air-raid alert, we were attacked by surprise. When I was murmuring “Catch it better, our radar boys”, a ground crew beside me groaned “Wu” abruptly.
“What's the matter?” I ran up to him.
He was crouching down with his right chest and back tinted in red.
Encouraging him "The bullet has passed through. It's OK." I called a medical soldier.
Two Grummans were flying.
Our base should have been secret but had been found by the U.S. military. I was impressed with their reconnaissance ability.
Two Grummans were persist in shooting us.
Our gunner was also hard to shoot them with his anti-aircraft gun when one of the Grummans blew black smoke and tried to go up but the engine sound was strange.
The plane was struggling but unable to gain altitude as the engine rotation did not increase.
When I thought it impossible for the pilot to bail out at such a low altitude, he turned his plane and took a bold attitude of emergency landing.
Our gunner was harder to shoot as it was his chance.
Then, no sooner shouted “Don't shoot!”, my Sergenat-major rushed the gunner to push him aside.
When I thought about what he had done well, if the plane had fallen from such a low altitude keeping its landing attitude, it would have crashed in the middle of the runway to explode. We would be obliged to recover the runway wasting two days at least, which would give us a serious influence on our own take-off/landing operations.
I admired Sergeant-major's cool judgment.
The other Grumman immediately turned its head to fly far away.
The damaged one hit big bounces three or four times on the runway and had stood on the nose with the tail wings raising high to stop. A pilot was coming out with his hands raised.
Just before landing, the engine was completely in the state of halt. We should praise his good skill to control such a plane of less buoyancy.
The pilot was handed over to the military police later.
Damage details of our equipments.
Aircrafts were safe as they were evacuated into concrete hangars but radio equipments - three transmitters, two spare transmitters, three receivers and three spare receivers had big holes on them and were totally out of service.
Regular contacts with other troops would be unavailable.
While we were worrying how it was going to be, Chief of Communication Room was ordering something to the second national soler. To collect usable parts from the shot junk and to repair the radios was his order.
“Is he all right, sir?” I asked Chief.
“You ask me so because you don't know this Private A's career. In Shaba(*outer free society), he is the chief of staff who is engaged in production development at a leading communication equipments maker B(name) in Tokyo. They are manufacturing these radio equipments."
I checked a plate on the radio. Yes, there was the company name he said along with model number.
I had lost my words. It was nothing but 'the right man in the right place'.
Another professional had been born in our team.
It was my shame that I made light of him thinking what on earth this old man could do when he came to our team for the first time.
The Private examined broken radios carefully and said
“Almost vacuum tubes are unusable. So are capacitors possibly. When the circuit is damaged, high-voltage current flows through the point where the insulation is bad to cause capacitor puncture. Resistance parts must be checked by tester. If the measured value fulfills the provided OHM, it is OK. Wirings are cut everywhere. All must be redone.”
If we had asked alternative radio equipments to the far depot, except the hand-carry portable type, as we had no cranes like today, it would have taken two or three days for such hi-powered fixed type of radio to disassemble, transport and reassemble.
“I can manage to repair. However, are the spare vacuum tubes available?”
Private started listing up orally names of necessary vacuum tubes quickly and smoothly. Lance Corporal who was in charge of technology staggered.
Private began soldering to assemble a radio being based on a less damaged frame with no circuit diagrams quickly.
I had to take my hat off to his swift good skills.
Technology soldier did not know what to do and had no way but obeyed Private's instruction to find necessary parts busily.
It was evidently Private's win.
After a little over a half day, he completed one set of transmitter of a wardrobe size together with one set of receiver. It would be impossible for a soldier to master this kind of skills in the military. A reliable staff had come. "People should not be judged on appearance." I had fully understood this old proverb to be sorry for what I thought about him.
By the way, the ground crew who was shot in the right chest recovered faster than expected as the bullet passed through below the clavicle fortunately. He left the army hospital in two weeks or so.
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