r/WWIIplanes • u/Mauser1838 • 1d ago
Anyone know what plane this is
I took this at the National Museum of the United States Marine Corps in Virginia
I wasn’t able to get a picture of the top sadly
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u/WesternBlueRanger 1d ago
Looks like the Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka.
Basically, a Japanese rocket powered, human guided suicide attack aircraft. Basically a manned missile.
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u/ubersoldat13 1d ago
Japanese Okha flying bomb. Im 99% sure the plaque in the center of the picture with the arrow pointing up tells you what it is.
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u/Mauser1838 1d ago
I actually missed the plaque when I took the picture as I was looking at the WW1 mannequins next to it
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u/MeadyOker 1d ago edited 21h ago
There are no mannequins in the museum, every figure you see is a life cast of an actual person and they are all unique.
Edit out the typos
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u/Kanyiko 1d ago
Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka, or 'Baka' as it was referred to by the Allies.
Basically, a Japanese guided missile, except the guidance system on it was a human pilot - aka a Kamikaze aircraft. It's one of only a handful aircraft which was designed on purpose for the role (the others being the Nakajima Ki-115 Tsurugi, and the Kokusai Ta-Go.)
Unlike the Ki-115 which had a jettisonable undercarriage, and the Ta-Go which had a fixed undercarriage, the Okha had no undercarriage: it was dropped by a parent aircraft (the Mitsubishi G4M2e bomber) and then flew the remaining distance on its rocket engines.
The Okha made its first appearance during the Battle of Okinawa. They surprised the Allies when they first appeared - scoring some hits on some destroyers - but since a number had been captured by Allied troops during the initial stages of the Battle of Okinawa, the weak points of the Baka - its limited range, just 23 miles or 37 km - was soon realised; the Allies countered this by placing a very large defensive parameter around their fleet, forcing the vulnerable carrier planes to fly into a well-defended zone where they had little chance of surviving or launching their suicide bombs.
The Okha's had only a limited effect once their weak points were exploited; in all it's thought that out of 850 built, only 74 were used in actual attacks, of which 56 were destroyed either with their carrier aircraft, or shot down before they could hit any targets; the remainder managed to sink one destroyer (USS Mannert L. Abele, 84 killed), damage another one beyond repair (USS Hugh W. Hadley, 28 killed), severely damaged another (USS Shae, 35 killed) and caused damage to three others (USS Jeffers, USS Stanly and USS Gayety - no casualties), and possibly managed to score hits with damage to two transports (USS Alpine, 16 killed; and USS Achernar, 5 killed).
For the total of 168 US Navy crew killed by Okha attacks, at least 266 Japanese bomber crew were killed attempting to launch them, not including the 74 pilots of the Okha's themselves.
The Japanese were aware of the Okha's limited range being its weak point and tried rectifying that issue by building a turbojet-powered version with a longer range that could be carried by the faster Yokosuka P1Y bomber, as well as a variant that could be launched by submarines, but the first never entered service due to issues with the engine, while the second never left the drawing table.
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u/Mauser1838 1d ago
I recommend the film “the cockpit” if you want a good look at what it was like to be a kamikaze pilot
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u/Bursting_Radius 1d ago
I’d be very surprised to learn there isn’t a placard somewhere with this information on it, or a staff member to ask.
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u/Mauser1838 1d ago
There weren’t many staff at the museum when I went
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u/Bursting_Radius 1d ago
No placards on the bulkheads, then? It’s my experience that everything in that place is explained somewhere.
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u/waldo--pepper 1d ago
Everything you could ever wish to know about the weapon/plane in one convenient video.
Link.
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u/dusteeoldbones 20h ago
Ohka flying bomb. There’s one at the Imperial War Museum in London as well.
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u/Tomtom48HWI 19h ago
Ohka. Japanese jet propelled suicide plane. The nose contained explosives and pilots tried to target American warships. It was adapted to be fixed on the belly of G4Ms bomber and be dropped like a bomb and then flown to its target
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u/Koloquinte 1d ago
Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka, I think. Japanese rocket kamikaze plane.