Warbird Information Exchange

Hello,

I am new here and please forgive if I post in the wrong location. My grandfather was on the USS Oberrender DE-344 which was struck by a Kamikaze plane on 9 May 1945. The order was given to abandon ship, and my grandfather went for a swim. He grabbed a part that bounced around him, and used it as a sort of paddle when he was in the water. It worked well enough that he turned around and got into the middle of the group of sailors- he didn't want to be on the leading edge due to sharks. He was not the type of person to embellish, and did not talk about the war other than a couple very small anecdotes. He did say this is a part of the plane that hit his ship.

It looks like a trim tab, and because it has camouflage on both sides, I am inclined to think it is from the vertical stabilizer. Someone on a different forum I belong to asked the diameter of the rivets- they are approx 4mm.



and



I grew up around aircraft, and as a child, got to work on B-25's B-26's, P/F-51's, F-8's, T-33, A-37's and an OV-1 through my father and his business. Based on experience, the part seems well made- without knowing the metallurgy, it appears to be aluminum.

First off, welcome to WIX - that's quite a first post!
Looking at the paint, it appears to be different colors on either side; so maybe this would be off a horizontal rather than a vertical control surface (dark on top/light on bottom)?

_________________

All right, Mister Dorfmann, start pullin'!
Pilot: "Flap switch works hard in down position."
Mechanic: "Flap switch checked OK. Pilot needs more P.T." - Flight report, TB-17G 42-102875 (Hobbs AAF)

Wow! Thanks for posting that. I just read about DE 344 on Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Oberrender_(DE-344)

If you haven't found it, I recommend posting it over on the message boards of www.j-aircraft.com. There are quite a number of people on there who are very skilled in dissecting Japanese aircraft parts and pieces. There is an outside chance that they might be able to tell you exactly which aircraft this came from. They are pretty good at things like that.

Also, if you haven't done so, I recommend writing up a document with as much history on this piece as you have (specifically on your Grandfather's story, with information on his service). Artifacts like this lose their history as time moves on.

_________________
REMEMBER THE SERGEANT PILOTS!

Please let us know if you find out anything.

First off, welcome aboard!

Second off, WHOA NELLY. That is equal parts incredibly awesome, and a real head scratcher. The tan surface is, at least to my eyes, a dead match for the "Hairyokushoku" finish applied to early A6M Zeroes. If memory serves, a lot of Aichi D3A Vals carried this color in 1941 and early 1942 too... there were probably other aircraft which carried this shade as well, but it seems this warm yellow-grey tone was a Navy color rather than an Army one. So that's possibly one lead.

The head scratching part shows up on the other side... is that black, or a very dark green? Or is it blue-black? I can't quite make heads or tails of it, and can't think of an IJN aircraft which would have carried this color scheme, unless this is actually a piece from near the cockpit section in which case the darker shade might be an interior color.

Best advice I can give you would be to reach out to Nic Millman who runs the Aviation of Japan blog; he is an absolute expert in Japanese aircraft, particularly with color research, and I'm sure he would love to dig into this further! Here's a link to one of his blog posts discussing the Hairyokushoku finish:

http://www.aviationofjapan.com/2011/12/zero-paint-degradation-schematic-models.html

Thanks for sharing your grandfather's story and this amazing artifact with us, and please keep us posted on what you learn!

Best regards,

Lynn

Very interesting!

Hello- I have reached out to http://www.j-aircraft.com/ and am waiting to be confirmed as registered. Will update as soon as possible.

Thanks for the responses so far.

Hello- I have taken some more pictures:

It is funny how you can own something and not actually see the details of it. There is an angle on one end, and what appears to be a radius on the other end.

I have taken measurements, it is 452 mm on the trailing edge, and 111 mm on the top/olive edge, and 109 mm on the bottom/dark edge. I do think that radius is part of it now, because there seems to be a metal filler on the inside of the trailing edge that ends without appearing sheared. I have taken more pictures.

In the eighth photo, I see some Japanese characters inside the leading edge, written in red crayon(?) and a rubber-stamped character in a circle...

_________________

All right, Mister Dorfmann, start pullin'!
Pilot: "Flap switch works hard in down position."
Mechanic: "Flap switch checked OK. Pilot needs more P.T." - Flight report, TB-17G 42-102875 (Hobbs AAF)