I had no idea what an overall history this ship had. History channel had a great special on this morning. How many kamakazee attacks did it survive?
What plane did the Japanese use as kamakazees and why? Is there a model for it?
it survived four kamikazees. They actually have a piece of one of the kamikazees on the Intrepid museum in new york.
Wonderful museum, by the way!
The Japnaese used just about anything that would get into the air, Bettys, Zeros, Judys and the rocket powered Baka among others. Why? They were losing the war and thought they could turn back the allies. These a/c were available and they couldn’t train the aircrew to prewar standards. Alot of pilots were lost with little time aloft. Most of these planes are available.
The Japanesse did also built a few dedicated Kamikaze planes. I have shots of one in a book called Pacific War Eagles In Color or something like that. They were ugly A/C, totally purpose built.
The landing gear had no struts and either fell of on take off or were jettisoned.
They were unpainted, except for the meatball, and they were of such a low grade metal, they arrived at the airfield with rust on them.
Also they had no canopy, just a windscreen.
These were built because they were much cheaper than their front line stuff, and could be built by very unskilled laborers.
http:www.plummersmines.com/images/intrepid_1.jpg