Nakajima B5N2, the Scourge of Pearl Harbor
The Nakajima B5N2 seated three, carried 1700 pounds of either bombs or a torpedo hung beneath the fuselage. It single-handedly practically destroyed our Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor.
By: Norm Goyer
To say we were caught unprepared with obsolete weapons would be the understatement of the decade. We ignored diplomatic messages, many of our troops were at church and only small numbers were manning the guns. We had obsolete aircraft all tied down in a row, just waiting for an attack, we had our battleships and destroyers in a bottleneck harbor. By sheer dumb luck, our carriers were out at sea. December 7th, 1941 was not our shining hour.
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This excellent artist’s rendition shows the long lines of the Kate with the gear retracted, and no ordinance attached.
The first wave of Japanese aircraft, including 144 Nakajima B5N2 torpedo bombers, which had taken off from Japanese carriers, attacked Pearl Harbor and devastated the Pacific Fleet. Flying at wave-top level, with almost zero opposition, the Kates dropped their torpedoes. The torpedoes sped into the sides, just below water level, of the anchored Navy ships sending numbers of them, including the Oregon and the Arizona, to the bottom with resulting great loss of life. Then the Aichi Val dive bombers and Zeros came in and bombed and strafed Pearl Harbor and other military installations in the vicinity. But it was the torpedo bombers which had caused the most damage to our fleet. How did Japan come to have such a powerful weapon while our Navy only had the obsolete Douglas Devastator? It is a long and interesting story.
This photo was supposedly taken of a Kate taking off headed to attack Pearl Harbor.
It appears that Japan had been planning for this day for years. In 1932 their military issued orders for several aircraft companies to come up with a design for an attack bomber that could carry at least 2000 pounds of bombs or a torpedo. Mitsubishi, Nakajima and Aichi produced prototypes for evaluation. The winning aircraft was not exactly what the military wanted, so they placed a minimum stop-gap order and once again sent out new specifications for the attack bomber they wanted. It needed to seat three, have a retractable landing gear and folding wings for carrier operation. It had to have a top speed of 207 mph at 6500 feet. The Nakajima B5N1 nailed the specifications and then some. It even had Fowler flaps and a variable-pitch propeller. It could carry the required load of 1764 pounds of bombs or a torpedo. The B5N2 production model used standard flaps rather than the previous Fowler type along with a larger engine and a constant speed propeller. The Japanese Navy finally had the attack bomber they had requested. The Nakajima saw intense service from Pearl Harbor through the entire extensive Pacific campaign. It was used for every conceivable mission. It fought for the entire war ending as a training aircraft for the more modern attack bombers that appeared in 1944 and 1945.
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This artist’s view of the Nakajima B5N2 shows the landing gear down with a 1700-pound torpedo in its sling.
There were only three torpedo-carrying aircraft in the Pacific Theatre, the Douglas Devastator, the Grumman Avenger and the Japanese Nakajima N2B5, a type of aircraft that is no longer needed. Missiles have taken over.
The aircraft resembling Nakajima Kates seen in “Tora Tora Tora” and “Pearl Harbor” were replicas built from North American Texans, with extensive modifications. They did indeed look like the real Kate. A large number of these aircraft now reside with the Commemorative Air Force and are seen at airshows reenacting the Pearl Harbor attack.
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