re: History in Pictures is a great twitter feed. Here is one just posted.

No quiz with this post. Just a few interesting aviation photos involving some previously discussed aircraft.

First is the P-40. Everybody knows it was used in combat by every allied air force. What almost nobody knows is that it was also used operationally by Japan and used to equip part of a Sentai (air group).



You can read more about it and see a few photos here. Not surprisingly, there were issues with friendly fire incidents.

Along the same lines, immediately after the war France attempted to regain control of its former possessions in SE Asia. Their solution to filling an immediate air power need was to turn to captured Japanese aircraft.

They used the Ki-43 Oscar, which were disliked:



The E3A1 Jake, which was pretty well liked and used for a good while:



and a single A6M2-N Rufe, which they crashed on its first flight,



In Europe, they also equipped some fighter squadrons with FW-190As but these were never used in combat.



This has been a fun thread, but it is time for me to check out for the weekend.