Warbird Information Exchange

Any Model 18 experts out there?

I'm reading a biography of Walter and olive Ann Beach.

In it, the author (a newspaper reporter, not an aviation historian) clearly states that the Japanese used Model 18s in WWII.
In fact, he says the scene in the recent film "Letters from Iwo Jima" was accurate when it showed the Japanese commander flying to the island in a Twin Beech.
I thought that the film makers used what was available..after all, no airworthy Japanese transport aircraft from that period exist and the Twin Beech certainly looks like it's from that time period.

I can't imagine a decent author making that kind of mistake, but my sources on Beech aircraft and wartime Japanese (Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War by Francillon) aircraft, don't mention any Imperial Japanese 18s. The author also mentions that aviation author Edward H. Phillips, who has written at least five books on Travel Air and beech aircraft proofread the manuscript, so maybe the japanese really did have some Twin Beeches?

They did make Staggerwings (Beech Model 17s) under license, ....The boigraphy lists the 2004 book published by the Beech Heritage Museum "Beech 18: a Civil & Military History" by Parmerter* as a source, so perhaps he read it in there.

The Japanese also built Lockheed Loadstars under license, so that's another possible source of confusion (which I also bring up whenever someone was that allied troops saw AE's plane on some island after retaking it).

*(It's one of those used books people ask stupid money for on the internet, in fact the price jumped today to $118 when this morning it was much less..I suppose they saw that someone surfed the internet looking for it. ).

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Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.
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I figure if you wanted my opinion on items unrelated to this forum, you'd ask for it.

Though it is possible the Japanese had some Beech 18s it was probably a Hickory transport on the Iwo Jima. That is just my opinion. The Americans after the war where somewhat astonished that the Japanese had actually copied a Gooney Bird C-47 and put them into production. It is historical fact that before the war the Japanese were keen to see what the West was producing and sometimes buy airframes to test.

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Better is the enemy of Good.

Actually, the Japanese had a license to build DC-3s.
The GIs and Marines might have been surprised by Japanese planes, but not the aeronautical "establishment".

_________________
Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.
Note political free signature.
I figure if you wanted my opinion on items unrelated to this forum, you'd ask for it.

I believe the code name for the Japanese DC-3's was Tabby.

My guess would be mixing up Beech 18 for Lockheed 18, which looks a lot like the 14 which looks a lot like the Kawasaki Ki-56: http://www.aviastar.org/air/japan/kawasaki_ki-56.php , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kawasaki_Ki-56

As famvburg suggests above, the Japanese did import 30 (20 + 10 later) Lockheed Model 14-WG3B twin-engine transports in 1938, and Tachikawa aquired a license from Lockheed. Tachikawa started production of the type in 1939 as a military transport designated Army Type LO Transport. As for Beech Model 18s that Japan might have aquired, I don't find any export orders in my references. However, China, in early 1940, did order Beech 18 variants as crew trainers and a variant as a light bomber (forerunner of the USAAF AT-11) to the tune of about $750,000. Some of these might have been captured and operated by the Japanese. Also, the photo-mapping version of the Beech 18, the F-2 series, was in service at this time and may have been imployed in the Phillipines, according to one source. For what it is worth.

Randy