Mitsubishi G4M "Betty"
"The Flying Lighter" — long range bought with no protection at all.
The G4M was designed for the vast distances of the Pacific, and its range was extraordinary. But that range was achieved by packing the wings with unprotected fuel — a single incendiary round would light them up. Its crews called it the "Hamaki" (cigar); Allied pilots called it "the one-shot lighter."
01Sank the British battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser HMS Repulse off Malaya on 10 December 1941 — the first time capital ships at sea had been sunk purely by aircraft attack. A turning point in naval warfare.
02Heavily engaged across the Pacific, especially in the Solomons campaign. On 18 April 1943, a G4M carrying Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was intercepted and shot down by P-38 Lightnings in Operation Vengeance, a direct result of broken Japanese codes.
03Late-war G4M2e variants served as motherships for the desperate Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka — the rocket-propelled, piloted flying bomb used in kamikaze attacks. The G4M was also the aircraft used to fly Japanese surrender delegations in 1945.
Theatres of operation
- ·Pacific
- ·China
Principal operators
- ·Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service
Others in the same fight.
Avro Lancaster
B.I / B.III / B.X
Lockheed P-38 Lightning
P-38F / G / H / J / L
Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress
B-17E / F / G
Consolidated B-24 Liberator
B-24D / H / J / L / M