ost (Chris Mark) writes:

From: Gernot Hassenpflug

on November 3rd, again on November 7th, and for a third time
on November 26th, the training squadron (Type 97 bombers) of the IJAAF
(not the IJNAF) heavy bomber wing at Hamamatsu raided Saipan's B-29
airfields at night and at low level.

Dear Chris, how did I guess that you might have some info on this :-)
I am really impressed, you are a mine of information. I had no idea of
the reference you mention, I will look it up in the inter-library
loans here at Kyoto University (as you say, Tokyo might have it.

The first raid hit Isely and Kobler Fields. US source (see below)
credits one downed by P-61 and two by AAA. The second raid lost 3
to AAA. The third raid also involved daylight Japanese attacks
involving fighters from the 252 Kokutai on Iwo Jima and was in
retaliation for the first B-29 raid on Japan out of Saipan on the
24th. No B-29s, which had begun arriving on Saipan in Oct., were
damaged by the raids. Later raids continuing to the beginning of
1945 involved not the old Sallys but Peggys which dropped chaff to
mess up radar intercepts.

Interesting. The Japanese article is a personal account, so it does
not deal with other raids or other units, something the crews would
have been unaware of in any case. I shall have to check again, but as
far as the article goes it seems no aircraft were lost on raids 2 and
3 (you do not state dates in your reply, so I assume you have the same
dates in mind that I wrote). I wonder if there were possibly other
units involved on the same night, or recce aircraft. On the third raid
the author mentions dropping his bombs directly on the B-29s lined up
on the runway, and seeing at least 3 columns of flame as they left on
the deck.

I have not read (time...time...) reports of the Ki-67 squadrons, but I
think those might have been IJNAF aircraft. The IJAAF Peggy's I think
were all based in Formosa or had been destroyed in the Philippines at
that time.

I hope you post your translation or excerpts from it. It sounds
very interesting. The daringness of Japanese long-range air
operations is always impressive. They had capabilities (if only in
a limited way) that no one else save the US seems to have had.

The article is interesting because it is the only (to me) known
instance of the IJAAF doing a long-distance overwater attack: the fact
that they then combined this with a night and low-level mission all in
one is not only startling, but as you say, very daring indeed. Not
sure about how the Germans and the British did with long-range
missions, but both had respectively anti- and pro-shipping patrols
into the Atlantic and of course the Germans attacked the Arctic
convoys.

Best regards,
--
G Hassenpflug * IJN & JMSDF equipment/history fan