Japanese Militaria at Castle-Thunder.com

[gwsiii]

These are the balsa Airplanes my Dad built for me, he had a kit for the Rufe, but had to make his own plans for the Seiran. They are about 1/32 scale. The carts were recreated from a picture in an old Air Classic magazine.

The Rufe was basically a Zero modified as a sea (float) plane.
Rufe:






The Sairen was an airplane designed for use on the I400 series submarines, and utilized a launch carriage when launched from the submarine, or pontoons to be launched from the sea and recovered.







The cart for the Rufe and the cart for the Sairen:

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I didn't pay to much for that old Arisaka, I just bought it a little bit too soon!

[type-14]

Those are really neat. Your Dad has done himself proud.

[03man]

Great job on the models, your Dad is a master modeler!
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03man

[Hopalong]

[car99]

Really nice models. The Rufe had to be the baddest of float planes because it was a Zero Sen fighter with floats. They used it for air cover over Attu and Kiska. I'm not familiar with the Sairen, but it looks like it was pretty fast.

[gwsiii]

If anyone is looking for info on the Aleutian campaign, try The Thousand-Mile War: World War II in Alaska and the Aleutians by Brian Garfield. Very interesting read, seems like as many planes (on both sides) were lost to the elements, as to each other. Trey
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I didn't pay to much for that old Arisaka, I just bought it a little bit too soon!

[whitesharkseeker]

Nice models! The Japanese also used the Rufe over Truk. Most burned by Hellcats. I dove a Rufe in the lagoon at Saipan. It is in about 40-feet of water, upsidedown. Neat plane.

Just visited the Utah Military Air Museum and they are reconstructing a B-24 found in the Aluetians along with a P-38.

-Eric

[gwsiii]

George or anyone else, if you have any related pictures, please post them. We don't get a lot of traffic here, but the people that do show up have told me they really appreciate the comments and images. Didn't they find a B17 several years ago somewhere (ice-locked) that they got ready to fly out and had it burn up on takeoff? Trey
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I didn't pay to much for that old Arisaka, I just bought it a little bit too soon!

[oopy38]

I am not aware of that story, but as I understand it, a B-17 was leading the flight of new P-38's and they all landed in Greenland and were buried in ice until a few short years ago, when one of the P-38's was retrieved, rebuilt (at a cost of about $10 million total) and is flying today as Glacier Girl. Not sure if the B-17 ditched also and is still there or not.

[DEFUC]

Well your close ,Trey, the "my gal sal" was/is a B-17 recovered in greenland and being restored,she came home by ship,with extensive structural damage..the "Keebird" was recovered in the aluetians a few years back,gotten running and burned during engine testing or take off,however she was a B-29 and crashing the late 40's (1947 maybe)..so two stories sort of getting blended.there are still a couple of B-17's under 250ft of ice in greenland I think along with a few more (5 maybe) p-38's.

[gwsiii]

Here's a link to pictures of a restored Seiran my Dad did a really great job from what I can tell, pictures of other Japanese planes are located here.
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I didn't pay to much for that old Arisaka, I just bought it a little bit too soon!