Kawasaki Ki-45 Toryu Nick
The Kawasaki Ki-45 Toryu ("Dragon Killer"), known to the Allies by the reporting name "Nick", was a two-seat, twin-engined heavy fighter built by Kawasaki for the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service in the Second World War. Conceived in the late 1930s as a long-range fighter in the class of the Messerschmitt Bf 110, it reached combat only in the autumn of 1942 after a long and troubled development, and proved unable to match agile single-engined fighters. It served instead in ground-attack and anti-shipping work, and, fitted with upward-firing cannon, as the Army's only night fighter to see action, defending the Japanese home islands against B-29 raids in 1944–45. Of the 1,700 built, a single example survives, at the Smithsonian's Udvar-Hazy Center.
Why It Mattered
The Kawasaki Ki-45 Toryu — "Dragon Killer" — was Japan's entry in the class of twin-engined heavy fighters that emerged in Europe in the late 1930s, a two-seat design in the mould of the Messerschmitt Bf 110; the Allies gave it the reporting name "Nick". Few Japanese warplanes took longer to reach the front line: Doi began the design in January 1938, yet more than four years passed before production aircraft reached combat in the autumn of 1942. Like its European counterparts, it could not hold its own against agile single-engined fighters, and its real work became attacking ground targets and shipping. Its lasting role was in home defence, where cannon angled upward to fire into a bomber's unprotected belly made it the only Japanese Army night fighter to see action in the war, flown against the B-29 raids on Japan.
Design Notes
Takeo Doi's team began work in January 1938, and the first prototype was ready in January 1939, powered by two licence-built Bristol Mercury radials, Nakajima's Ha-20b. The prototype disappointed: its engines failed to produce their rated power, its manually retracted undercarriage was unreliable, and drag held its top speed to 298 mph, so late in 1939 the Army suspended the project. Revived in April 1940 with 1,000 hp Nakajima Ha-25 engines in tighter cowlings, the airframe was then slimmed down, given a redesigned tail and new straight-edged wings, and emerged as the Ki-45 Kai, its prototype complete by May 1941. The Army ordered the Kai into production late in 1941 as the Type 2 Two-seat Fighter. The production models divided the work: the KAIa was the standard heavy fighter, the KAIb a ground-attack and anti-shipping version built around a 37 mm cannon, and the KAIc a dedicated night fighter with a 37 mm cannon and two obliquely mounted 20 mm cannon — 477 of the night fighters were produced from April 1944. Unusually for a Japanese aircraft of its time, the Ki-45 also gave its crew armour and fire-resistant fuel tanks.
Operational History
The Ki-45's combat debut came in Burma in October 1942, with the 21st Sentai; the 16th Sentai took the type into action in China a month later. Over New Guinea it was used against American PT boats at sea and against Allied tanks on land, and it flew as a night fighter against the B-24s of the US 5th Air Force, with some success. Crews valued the type for its heavy armament and its protected fuel tanks. The oblique armament began as a field modification, in which the upper fuselage fuel tank was replaced by two 12.7 mm machine guns angled upward; it worked well enough that the Army ordered Kawasaki to build a night-fighter version on the same principle. When XX Bomber Command launched its first B-29 raid on Japan on 15 June 1944, eight Ki-45s were among the interceptors, and Japanese claims credited them with eight bombers; only seven B-29s were in fact lost on the raid, at least two of them to other causes. By the war's end, five Sentai in Japan flew the Ki-45 as night fighters. Late in the war the aircraft were also used in aerial ramming attacks against B-29s, and in kamikaze attacks such as the one that struck the destroyer-transport USS Dickerson off Okinawa on 2 April 1945.
Afterlife
Of the 1,700 Ki-45s built by Kawasaki, a single example is known to survive: a Kai Hei (Mod. C) night fighter, one of 477 built. It was one of about 145 Japanese aircraft shipped to the United States aboard the escort carrier USS Barnes for evaluation after the war, and was test-flown at Wright Field, Ohio, and at Naval Air Station Anacostia. Evaluation pilots rated its takeoff, climb, flight characteristics, approach and landing, and manoeuvrability good to excellent, but reported that it handled very poorly on the ground, and criticised its vibration, cramped cockpit and poor visibility. The Army Air Forces handed the aircraft over to the Smithsonian Institution in June 1946, and it is on display today at the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia.