Top 10 WW2 Japanese Planes & Weapons - UK Museums 2024

From planes to tank and artillery guns, tucked away in several major museums are some very rare WWII Imperial Japanese Army and Navy weapons. Here are my Top 1o picks.

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[laupernut]

11:20 I remember playing on that gun as a kid when I visited my cousin during summer school holidays. My uncle worked as a gardener for Lord Mountbatten and was extremely upset when he was killed by the IRA.

[AhnkoCheeOutdoors]

My uncle flew a Ki-46 III in the Philippines during the war. In fact he was flying recognizance in Luzon when he spotted the US invasion fleet heading to Lingayen Gulf, which my father was a part of. I am 64 now, but when I was 7 my father bought me a 1/50 scale model of this plane, and we built it together. I still have it. He told me my Uncle Suzuki used to fly this plane. After the war he became an English language teach in Utsunomiya City.

[WAL_DC-B]

My "old man's" WWII ship, the USS Yorktown aircraft carrier (Essex class, CV10) was fortunate in that it was only struck once during the Pacific campaign by a bomb dropped by a Japanese aircraft during the time of the battle of Okinawa. He was there when it happened, and he said the explosion below decks really shook the huge ship. Around four sailors were killed from the blast and my dad's locker actually had some shrapnel damage.

[GodzillaX]

Missed chance not using clips from the most extreme for our countdown. For Godzilla Minus One, a ww2 plane was built as a near life size replica. After filming was concluded, the studio doniated the replica prop to an aviation museum!

[sirboomsalot]

Slight correction about 9:19; Hornet was crippled by Japanese aircraft and was supposed to have been scuttled by its escorts. However, the issues with our torpedoes and how rushed it was meant that Hornet was still afloat when Japanese destroyers found her. While they apparently considered capturing her, they instead decided to put her down with their own torpedoes, which in this case were Long Lances.

[AJ-yoew]

There's a complete Zero at the Auckland War Memorial Museum in New Zealand. When you get up to it. it's really tiny.

[masahige]

A welcome showing! I was fortunate to see a few of these when last in the UK. Small correction -- IJA aircraft designations are not pronounced 'K.I., ' but rather, 'Key' (キ), being short for 'Kitai, ' or 'Airframe.' So, for example, the Ki-43 'Hayabusa' was factory-coded 'Airframe 43' while being service designated the 'Army Type 1 Single-seat Fighter'.

[roberthevern]

My intended comment was hijacked when Prof Felton mentioned my town, Boise, Id!
John Sterling had/has a very large nursery/landscape operation that has been quite successful as Boise has grown to over 1milion population as Idaho's major population center!
My step father served in the Burma/India theater, rising to the rank of Major in the combat engineers branch of the Army. He made friends with the locals of the area, even naming his beloved dog after one particular friend!
Thanks, Dr Felton! This post was especially meaningful to me as
a 69yr old resident of Boise since 1961!
You're the British version of Ken Burns!

[barry]

I saw the Mitsubishi A6M Zero fly at the Planes of Fame Museum in Chino, CA. It was spectacular!

[shanemcdowall]

There is a Japanese Zero in the Auckland War Memorial Museum. The Japanese pilot who flew the Zero visited the museum some years ago.

[analystanalyst]

My dad was part of the P-51 program at North American and was hands on, at one point, after they brought the Alaskan Zero down to the lower 48. It was light and unarmored, and agile. The Grumman Hellcat had already taken it’s first flight before the Alaskan Zero was brought down for testing. It really wasn’t a huzzah. I have a photo, someplace, of it flying with the US insignia on its side, along with color slides of P-51’s flying with factory numbers still on the tail and color footage of parked 51’s, which probably shouldn’t have been taken at the time. A lot of that equipment was just left. Everyone had had enough from Guadalcanal through Okinawa. My dad’s cousin flew a Mitchell and was one of Kenny’s Kids, as far as I know, not getting a whole story, and was captured and beaten badly over his captivity, lasting only a year after repatriation before he was dead. Never heard much about it, except once in passing. The PTO was a nightmare, not that the ETO wasn't.

[marklatimer]

Those early scenes of what looks like the camera plane following the fighter dropping bombs, surely that would have been incredibly dangerous for the following plane being directly above the explosion or flying directly through the debris thrown up.

[HamanKarn]

My local war museum where I live in Virginia had a decent axis section. Mostly small arms but the Japanese section was interesting. They had some heavy and light machine guns and knee mortars. Surprisingly they had a good Italian and Finnish section as well. But the Japanese had some cool small arms mostly there.

[tommorwood]

Wait, The U.K as an ACTUAL Ki-100!?!? Hell, I'm not sure we have one of those in "The Colonies." 🙁

[mitchmatthews]

I never skip a Felton video. Cheers, Mark!

[andrewsnow]

From across the pond in the US, I had a chance to visit my brother when he taught at Oxford and we toured Duxford Air Museum and IWM in London. I was very impressed with the amount of history and remember seeing many of these weapons. Great channel, keep it up.

[clifftrainor]

That Okinawa battle footage at the end is insane!

[showato]

Another Great video to drink with my morning coffee!

[FliesFLL]

What happened to the great Japanese plane makers? Mitsubishi makes stereos, pianos, and cars.

Nakajima makes cars as well; Today their cars are named after the Japanese word for the Pleiades star system: Subaru.

[deanbuss]

I genuinely appreciate your work Mark ‼️🇬🇧🇺🇲