A tip of the seasonal hat to
Andrew Young for very kindly sharing these links featuring a rare surviving tail fin and rudder in
original paint from a Nakajima C6N Saiun 'Myrt' 21-101 of 121 Ku captured on Tinian. The article
C6N Saiun Tail presents a comprehensive selection of large and clear photographs of the tail including close-ups and also features the left hand tailplane of Mitsubishi A6M2 c/n 2666 Hōkoku 515 (Hiroshima Prefecture Industrial and Source Branch) with a link to the
website of Mr
Taizo Nakamura detailing this Zero and discussing its colour scheme. The Saiun article notes that this shows that the Zero fighter was not 'amber colored' but a completely achromatic gray.
Photographs of Saiun 21-101 at the time of its capture were published in Bunrin-Do's Famous Airplanes of the World No.82 in February 1977, demonstrating without doubt that the paint scheme is original. A link to Misawa Aviation & Science Museum also features further photographs of the artefact whilst a link to a NewsOnline article tells the story of its survival and acquisition (cut and paste the Japanese text into Google Translate to get the gist).
With special thanks to Andrew for the links.
Image credit: via links above and FAOW cover © 1977 Bunrin-Do.
