Tuesday, 3 April 2018

Mitsubishi Ki-51

The Mitsubishi Ki-51 was a Japanese light bomber which, in the inmediate post-war, served with many nations.

  • China: After the Japanese withdrawal from mainland China tons of equipment were left behind. Both communist and nationalist armies took them and pushed them into service. They served through the late stages of the Chinese Civil War, in the post 1945 period. Apparently, initialy the nationalists captured them, but they were soon captured by the communists some time after 1945 and after the war they were kept in service by the People's Liberation Army's Air Force until 1953. 
  •  France: As the Ki-51 was mainly used in the China-Burma-India Theatre of Operations, many of them were left behind in Indochina. After the Japanese withdrawal, local French authorities pushed some few of them into service (as most of them were damaged or derelicted beyond usage) and used them occasionaly in the First Indochina War in the liaison role, which, not in vain, they were assigned to a liaison squadron. 
  • Indonesia: The Indonesian People's Security Force (IPSF), which was the Indonesian anti-Dutch militia that fought for independence, captured a small number of Ki-51s at numerous Japanese bases being the bigger one the one located at Malang, named Bugis Air Base which was evacuated on 18th September 1945. Most of the aircrafts were destroyed in the subsequent Indonesian Independence War which lasted from 1945 until 1949. It's known that at least one Ki-51 bombed Dutch troops on 29th July 1947.
  • Democratic People's Republic of Korea: As Manchuria and Korea were important Japanese bases, after the USSR invaded in August 1945, they captured lots of Japanese equipment which, compared to Soviet ones, they were very outdated. As most of them were concentrated both in Harbin (capital of Manchuria), Port Arthur (nowadays Dalian) and Pyongyang, (which before the proclamation of North Korea was an important hub in the region) when the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (AKA North Korea) was proclaimed on 9th September 1948, Soviet authorities allowed the newly Republic to have some Ki-51s. They were most probably used in the opening stages of the Korean War, however, most likely, they were destroyed soonly after. Anyway, we couldn't find any graphical evidence about them, the profile should be taken with a grain of salt.









Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_Ki-51
2. https://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=892

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