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Mike --
I have checked my home references and found an actual photo of your airplane (Tora [Tiger] 110 of 261st Kokutai) in both Thorpe and Hata et al.
Unfortunately, my scanner is not currently working, so all I can do for now is show you some rather poor quality photos that I took of the photos in the books and of a color painting by Don Thorpe that appears on the cover of his book.
The photo is of a badly damaged A6M2 (the rear fuselage appears to be partially severed) that is still in Japanese hands. It is surrounded by Japanese ground crew. So it is not a photo of a captured aircraft.
This raises questions about when the photo was taken.
261st Kokutai was established at Kagoshima on 1 June 1943. On 1 July it was assigned to the newly formed 1st Air Fleet, which would later be sent out to the Marianas. However, the move to the Marianas did not take place until February 1944. If the aircraft was combat damaged, the photo must have been taken between February and June 1944, probably on Saipan. Alternatively, the photo could have been taken at Kagoshima between June 1943 and February 1944, or at Katori, the staging base for the move to the Marianas in mid-February 1944.
As you know, 261 Ku was nicknamed the "Tiger Air Group." The tail numbers were either preceded by "61" or the kanji character Tora [Tiger], as is the case with your airplane.
Thorp identifies Tiger-110 as the group leader's aircraft (presumably the combat group leader [Hikōtaichō], Lieutenant Masanobu Ibusuki, rather than the air group commander [Kōkutaichō], Commander Taketora Ueda) and says that the combined vertical yellow stripe and oblique white fuselage stripe indicate a group leader.
The photo clearly shows the fuselage and oblique wing stripes (at least on the top of the port wing). The question becomes one of interpreting the colors.
Don Thorpe has interpreted the topside colors as overall dark green (Shade N1) and that is the way he depicts the airplane in his cover painting and in a side view painting in the book.
However, the rear of the aircraft in the photo really does appear to be a different shade or color from the rear edge of the canopy to the tail and that shade appears identical to that of the Hinomaru. I presume this is the basis for the “Red Tiger” painting.
So, if your airplane has dark green topsides, you are in synch with Don Thorp, one of the foremost authorities on Japanese WWII military and naval aviation colors. But if you ever decide to recolor the kit and build a Red Tiger, you can (in the absence of documentary or first-person evidence to the contrary) base your decision on the appearance of the airplane in the photos.
I await further discussion on this.
Don
Sources:
Photo 1 and info on the movements of 261 Ku: Ikuhiko Hata and Yasuho Izawa, Japanese Naval Aces and Fighter Units in World War II, trans. by Don Cyril Gorham, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989.
Photos 2 and 3 and info on the fuselage and wing stripes: Donald W. Thorp, Japanese Naval Air Force Camouflage and Markings World War II, Fallbrook, CA: Aero Publishers, Inc., 1977.
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