ROYAL INTERNATIONAL AIR TATTOO

摘要

Placing the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force Kawasaki P-l maritime patrol aircraft on static display at this year's RIAT alongside the US Navy's P-8A Poseidon, the latter with a sinking-submarine-against-a-rising-sun insignia on its tail, might have seemed an unfortunatejuxtaposition. However, the first visit ofJMSDF aircraft to a European show evoked memories of the close relationship that existed between the Royal Naval Air Service and the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service (IJNAS) from before the First World War, until conflicting imperial ambitions later turned the former allies into bitter adversaries. The IJNAS had already imported and armed four Maurice Farman seaplanes, and equipped itself with the Wakamiya seaplane tender, before Britain invoked its cooperation treaty with Japan in the weeks immediately after the former declared war against Germany and Austro-Hungary on 4 August 1914. Early naval aviation experiences helped refine the design of the IJNAS's (and the world's) first purpose-built aircraft carrier, the Hosho, commissioned in 1922. It was a special British civilian mission tojapan in 1921, staffed by ex-Royal Naval Air Service personnel and underthe leadership of a former Royal Flying Corps officer, Colonel the Master of Semphill, that helped accelerate Japan's understanding and mastery of the complexities of naval carrier-based aviation.