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| B-29 Interceptor Prototype |
A Japanese aeronautics laboratory conducted research on
making fighters that could intercept U.S. B-29 bombers and using wooden
aircraft to deal with material shortages during the war, Jiji Press has
learned.
The lab was established by the government in 1943 in Nagoya,
the heartland of military aircraft production at the time. Little was
known about it, however, because many related documents were disposed of
or scattered and lost after aircraft research, design and manufacture
were banned during the Allied Occupation when Japan lost the war.
According to a classified document kept at the Defense
Ministry’s National Institute for Defense Studies, the lab was
established in July 1943 to “contribute to a dramatic improvement in the
performance and production of aircraft.” It was placed under the
jurisdiction of Gijutsuin, a wartime government agency charged with
science and technology administration.
According to minutes of meetings at the agency drawn up by
Tadashiro Inoue, the founding head of the agency, the lab had 16
research themes for fiscal 1943, the first of which was the structure of
a pressurized fuselage for high-altitude flights.
Another document from the agency said the lab “plans to
focus its research on equipment for high-altitude aircraft in fiscal
1944.” It also said, “Research on this area is currently the most urgent
challenge.”
In June 1944, U.S. forces carried out the first air raid on
the Japanese mainland using B-29 bombers that had pressurized sections
and an engine capable of maintaining high power output at thin-air
altitudes of 10,000 meters. The B-29 raids got into full swing in
November that year.
By the time the Nagoya lab was established in summer 1943,
Japan had acquired a lot of information on the B-29, which was still
under development. With little headway on technological development,
however, Japan had not produced an interceptor fighter to use against
the B-29.
“Intercepting the B-29 required a pressurized chamber and a
fuselage structure that could accommodate such a section,” aviation
historian Shigeru Nohara said. “Japan did not have a fighter equipped
with such components and needed to carry out intensive research (for
development).”
According to documents, including ones left by Inoue, the
lab received ¥500,000 in subsidies from the agency in fiscal 1943 and ¥1
million in fiscal 1944. The lab had a fiscal 1944 budget of ¥2.33
million, equivalent to more than ¥700 million at current value.
According to documents stored at the Nagoya Industrial
Science Research Institute, which succeeded the lab after the war ended,
and an alumni reunion report for Nagoya University’s School of
Engineering, the lab was staffed with researchers from the military,
industry and academia.
Companies that sent engineers to the lab included Kawasaki
Aircraft Industries, now part of Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd.,
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd.’s Nagoya aircraft plant, Aichi Kokuki
Co., now Aichi Machine Industry Co., and Nakajima Aircraft Co.
In a document from the Nagoya Industrial Science Research
Institute, Ukichi Shinohara, then-professor of Nagoya Imperial
University, who joined the lab as a researcher, wrote that he and his
colleagues were ordered to conduct research on quick adhesion processing
for wooden aircraft.
The lab is believed to have conducted research on using
substitutes for duralumin, a strong, lightweight aluminum-based alloy
that was in short supply, in aircraft manufacturing.
From Jiji Press
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