Japanese fighter at Norfolk NAS in mid 70's

[Russ Blow]

I was going through old pictures I had taken as a kid and came across this one of what my dad told me at the time was an N1K2 George. This would have been in the mid 70's. My dad worked at NARF at NAS Norfolk and I would come on base on Fridays to walk the base with him and see the different aircraft they had stored. They had pulled this one out of storage and it was sitting out by the old sea plane ramps on a low boy trailer. I would put a ladder up and climb in the cockpit and play around in it. I never saw the wings just the fuselage with engine and prop and the cockpit was fairly complete. I messed around with it for a few weeks when I was there. Only got this one bad picture of it just thought I would share it and see if anyone can confirm it was a George and if so does it still exist? I had the canopy slid back in the picture.

[tom d. friedman]

it's a george, can't tell if it's land based or pontooned. i'd bet land based & it's currently displayed at the smithsonian or usaf museum. they both have had it over the years.

[old iron]

This is the one that went to the (now) New England Air Museum for a while before going to the Naval Air Museum in Pensacola, where it is on display. The Willow Grove "George" went to NASM (after being restored by the Champlin Museum) and there is a third "George" at Wright-Pat.

This "George" by the way, saw combat as some bullets were found in the structure during restoration. Does anybody know more about the combat history?