The Colours of the 97 Sen Part 5

During the first months of 1942 a number of 50th and 77th Sentai 'Nates' were brought down over Allied airfields in Burma. Parts from these aircraft were souvenired by members of the AVG (the Flying Tigers) and taken back to the USA, where two rudders, one from aircraft #842 and one from aircraft #3218 still survive.

Colour matches for these extant artifacts have been published and will be examined in due course, but what is less well known is that some parts from these aircraft also found their way back to the UK. Many such artifacts, in private collections or small, provincial museums, are almost unknown and have never been published before, mainly because the focus of these collections is not about the colours of JAAF aircraft! The artifacts are incidental, in some cases wrongly attributed and often held in storage rather than on public display. 

Image credits: Authors collection