Cdr Kinashi, Japan's leading submarine "Ace", is among the 105 crewmen and passengers KIA. Hs fires four torpedoes and gets three hits that sink I-29 almost immediately at 20-10N, 121-55E. Banister's SAWFISH (SS-276) sights I-29 running on the surface. I-29's passengers, including Iwaya disembark with their plans and documents and proceed to Japan by air, but most of the German scientific cargo remains aboard.Īt 0800, I-29 departs Singapore for Kure. Erprobungskommando 262, the Luftwaffe evaluation squadron charged with service testing the revolutionary jet-propelled fighter, is formed as a test unit to introduce the Me-262 into service and to train a corps of pilots to fly it.Īt 1030, I-29 arrives safely at Singapore. I-29 journeys around Africa back to Japan. Technical Cdr Iwaya Eiichi carries blueprints of Messerschmitt Me-262 jet fighter and the Me-163 Komet rocket-propelled interceptor. I-29 departs Lorient, escorted by seven M-class minesweepers. Documents for the two planes along with a complete Me-163 and other aircraft parts are also loaded onto I-29. During her stay, I-29 embarks 18 passengers (including four Germans) and takes on a Jumo 004B engine used on the Me-262 jet fighter and an HWK 509A-1 bi-fuel rocket motor used on the Me-163 Komet rocket interceptor. IJN submarine I-29 arrives safely at Lorient, France. The Imperial Naval Staff authorizes him to open negotiations to buy a production licence for the Me-262 and Me-163. He reports back to Tokyo on these new aircraft. The Japanese Air Attache is shown the Me-262 along with several other advanced German aircraft.
Airframe modifications are complete by 1942, but hampered by the lack of engines, serial production does not begin until 1944, and deliveries are low, with 28 Me-262s in June, 59 in July, but only 20 in August.Īt 1100 (JST), Cdr (Rear Admiral, posthumously) Kinashi Takakazu's Type B1 submarine I-29 (coded Matsu(Pine) by the Japanese) departs Seletar Naval Base, Singapore for Nazi-occupied France.īerlin. The Junkers Jumo 004 engine is only marginally more reliable than the lower-thrust BMW 003. Test flights continue throughout the year, but the project is plagued by engine problems. The attaché sends enthusiastic reports to Tokyo about the Me-262's potential to defend Japan's homeland. The Japanese Air Attache in Berlin witnesses a number of flight tests when Germany begins flight trials of its first prototype of the Messerschmitt Me-262 Schwalbe (“Swallow”). Changing to a tricycle arrangement-a permanently fixed undercarriage on the fifth prototype, with a definitive fully retractable nosewheel gear on the 6th and subsequent aircraft - corrects this problem. The initial four prototypes are built with the conventional gear configuration. On the second attempt, Wendel solves the problem by tapping the aircraft's brakes at takeoff speed, lifting the horizontal tail out of the wing's turbulence. The wing's turbulence negates the effects of the elevators and the first takeoff attempt has to be cut short. Retracting the Me-262's conventional tail wheel gear causes its jet exhaust to deflect off the runway. The third Me-262 prototype airframe becomes a true jet when it flies piloted by test pilot Fritz Wendel - almost nine months ahead of the British Gloster "Meteor's" first flight. Van Kirk with him.Imperial Japanese Navy Kikka ("Orange Blossom") - 1942-1945 When Tibbets was selected to command the 509th Composite Group to train for delivering the atomic bomb, he brought Mr. Van Kirk returned to the United States to train navigators. Eisenhower to Gibraltar in November 1942 in preparation for the invasion of North Africa.Īfter 58 missions over Europe and North Africa, Mr. Their B-17 Flying Fortress flew General Dwight D. Van Kirk and Ferebee for his crew the next year. Tibbets, flying with the Eighth Air Force out of England, selected Mr. He attended Susquehanna College for a year, then became an Army Air Forces cadet in October 1941. Theodore Van Kirk - everybody called him Dutch - was born and reared in Northumberland, Pa. 15, Japan surrendered, bringing World War II to an end. Three days later, another B-29 dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki. Van Kirk told it, by “more generals and admirals than I had ever seen in one place in my life.” Shortly before 3 p.m., the crewmen returned to Tinian and were greeted, as Mr. “Though you were still up there in the air and no one else in the world knew what had happened, you just sort of had a sense that the war was over, or would be soon,” he told Bob Greene for a 2000 book, “Duty.” I describe it looking like a pot of black, boiling tar.” “The entire city was covered with smoke and dust and dirt.