From: Gernot Hassenpflug

I am thinking of Manchukuo and Thailand,
among others perhaps, which were equipped with Japanese aircraft. Any
facts on how these ended up there?

I once knew a retired Japanese construction engineer who said that during the
"Fifteen Year War" he worked as an employee of a civilian contractor on a
number of projects in Chosen and Manshu as he called Korea and Manchuria.
Among these was a factory in Manchuria to build Nakajimas. So that's how
Manchuria might have got Japanese aircraft. He also worked on a similar project
in Java but got some unpleasant tropical disease and went home before it was
completed.
Incidentally, he said he was not drafted until well into 1945 and was trained
to resist a US assault on the homeland. He was damned glad when the war ended
without him ever to fire a shot--or have a shot fired at him. I remember once
we clinked glasses to the toast, "Thank God for the atomic bomb!"
Allowed him to get back into construction and make several mints in the postwar
Japanese building boom, most of which in his retirement he blew playing golf at
various exclusive country clubs or in the gambling dens and houses of ill
repute of Reno and environs. He was good buddies with a friend of mine who
retired to Reno after a similar career in construction on the US side. During
the Big One he'd been in a wire company in the Ardennes and in the occupation
of Germany. Had a jolly German wife who this Japanese guy seemed utterly
fascinated with. She was about twice his size....well, I'm rambling...
Military aviation content, at one point these two bought a PBY they intended to
fix up as a flying RV and tour the south seas islands in. Don't know how that
turned out.


Chris Mark