Purpose of Yellow Paint On Leading Edge of Japanese WWII Aircraft ??

deicer boots or auto leading edge flaps.

IIRC, it was a ID mark, like the yellow bottom wingtips on the Luftwaffe aircraft, or the invasion stripes on the US/RAF aircraft at D-Day. I'm trying to remember - did both the Japanese army and navy use the yellow bands; or was it used only by the Army? The marking wasn't used during the whole war.

Pat

ID, I believe.

Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.

Steve Hinton in the DVD ' Roaring Glory Warbirds ' ( A6M5 Zero edition ) explains that the yellow on the leading edges was for ground personnel to identify the Zero from a head on view. I took that to mean that Japanese AAA gunners wouldn't try to blast a Zero out of the sky if they could differentiate it from an enemy plane by the yellow leading edge stripes.

Would probably work the same way in air to air combat where Japanese Zero's could tell the good guys from the bad in head on views.

Hmmmm. Is that the answer ?

Chris

It wasn't just the Zero that carried them; a lot of the Japanese aircraft had the same markings on the inner wing leading edges. This SOB's 100 miles from me, and I've never seen it:

'm going to get the straight poop on this, come hell or high water. Now this is _very_ odd; a Zero with _black_ outlines for the national insignia?: 've seen the white outlined meatballs, and the ones with no outline, but black?!

Pat

Okay; here's clue one:

Hayabusa (Oscar) in the first photo has them, and the Hayabusa was only used by the Japanese army. The Tony further down the page also has them, and again that's a Japanese army only aircraft. BTW, via You Tube, the Hayabusa song from WW II: piece of propaganda work, that one. The use of paratroopers is interesting - did the Japanese ever use paratroopers operationally in WW II? The Soviets tried out the original concept first, but AFAIK, they never used it operationally either.

Pat

No wonder they lost - can"t understand a damn word they're saying. ;-^)

WmB

P.S. Sheesh - the things you'll find on YouTube

Who do you think cooked those chickens ;-)

WmB

British day fighters carried these too. Air Ministry Order A664/42, Appendix 1, issued 2nd July 1042, specifies "yellow strip on leading edge of wings" for day fighters at home, although no purpose is given. Interestingly it goes on, under Day bombers at home, to say, "Mosquito aircraft with a day role, and dual control conversion aircraft, will bear standard day fighter camouflage colouring and marking, including yellow strips on the leading edges of wings" and also, under Coastal Command Landplanes, specifically Wellington, Whitley, Liberator and Fortress aircraft, it says "see remarks re Mosquito aircraft above."

Speaking off the top of my head, I can't recall seeing any of the above wearing yellow strips on leading edges, except day fighters obviously.. Does anybody know different?

Regards

Pat Macguire

I've never seen a Lancaster with yellow leading edges, but I think I've seen the marking used on some British aircraft other than fighters, but can't remember which ones off of the top of my head. A Fairey Barracuda or Short Sunderland maybe? Anyway, I finally tracked down some info on the Japanese ones:

Pat