[Don Boose]

Now that I see the photo, I see that I misinterpreted Dan's description of the stripes. Definitely NOT the 47th.

I agree with your numbers, Mark, but my info indicates both units (25th and 59th) were full-up fighter sentais, rather than independent chutais. The markings on Dan's model and the photo Mike posted (white outlined oblique stripe on the vertical stabilizer with white outlined fuselage stripe forward of the empennage) are identical to those of the 25th Hiko Sentai, formed in November 1942 by expanding the 10th Independent Flying Chutai [dokoritsu hiko chutai] into a two chutai unit, with a third added in 1943. The 59th Hiko Sentai had similar markings, as you describe, but the fuselage stripe was thinner, the angle of the vertical tail stripe was at a different angle and, to the best of my knowledge, there was no white outline.

But then the problems.

1. None of the sources I have available to me (see below) indicate that the 25th Hiko Sentai was ever equipped with any model of the Ki-44.

2. None of the sources I have available indicate that either unit had a fourth chutai, so the green stripes are unlikely in the real world. If they were actually mis-printed blue stripes, it would have indicated the headquarters chutai.

My tentative conclusion is that the markings show an imaginary Ki-44 as it would have looked if it had been assigned to an imaginary 4th chutai of the 25th Hiko Sentai in 1943 or 1944.

Alternatively, it could represent an imaginary Ki-44 as it would have looked if it had been assigned to the headquarters chutai (blue stripe with a printing error making it look green) of the 25th Sentai.

This would be about the same level of mismatched markings as was the case with my Hampden.

Sources:

John F. Brindley, Nakajima Ki-44 Shoki ('Tojo'), Profile Aircraft 255, Windsor, UK: Profile Publications, 1973

Richard M. Bueschel, Nakajima Ki.44 Shoki Ia, b, c/IIa, b, c in Japanese Army Air Force Service, Canterbury, UK: Osprey Publishing, 1971

Ikuhiko Hata, Yasuho Izawa and Christopher Shores, Japanese Army Air Forces Fighter Units and their Ace 1931-1945, London: Grub Street, 2002.

Shoki, Sekai no Ketsusakuki [Great Aircraft of the World] No. 14, Tokyo: Bunrin-do, 1973

Donald W. Thorpe, Japanese Army Air Force Camouflage and Markings World War II, Fallbrook, CA: Aero Publishers, 1968.

Don