An assembly line of nearly completed Mitsubishi A6M2 Model 21 Zero fighters at the Nakajima Aircraft Company’s factory in Ōta, Gunma Prefecture, Japan circa 1941. This factory would later be critically damaged by American bombardment on February 10, 1945. Currently it is a Subaru Corporation plant for kei trucks.

Japanese Aircraft Factory during WW2 (1941)

Imperial Japanese Navy dive bomber pilot Lieutenant Kiyoto Furuta, he was one of the few IJNAS aviators to take part in the Attack on Pearl Harbor and survive the war. In 2 separate occasions he scored hits with a 550 pound bomb on the US Navy fleet carrier Enterprise at the Battle of the Eastern Solomons and at the Battle of Santa Cruz during the Guadalcanal campaign.

Lieutenant Kiyoto Furuta

A flight of IJAAF Kawasaki Ki-61 "flying swallow" fighters of the 244th Sentai in the winter of 1944-45 over Japan. The Lead plane is of Captain Teruhiko Kobayashi who was commander of the unit. Captain Kobayashi was an ace with five air victories, the 244th Sentai was the the most famous Sentai in the Japanese air defense system by the end oof the war the unit claimed 73 Allied B-29 combat “kills.”