Pilot Iinuma's Lesson

At 3:30 one hazy afternoon in 1937 a low-wing monoplane dropped on Croydon Aerodrome, London, in a landing which Aeroplane described as "the bounceless plop of a mashed potato." The plane had the flag of the Rising Sun painted on its white flank; it was named The Divine Wind. Its pilot, a 24-year-old wizard of endurance named Masaaki Iinuma, had just flown all the way from Tokyo (via Formosa, Indo-China, India, Iraq, Greece, Italy, France) in four days. Aeroplane, remarking that the crowd of greeters at the field nearly trampled underfoot half a dozen very small Japanese girls and their bouquets, paid tribute to Pilot Iinuma for being "thoroughly fit physically for a job of this kind."

Last week Pilot Iinuma, still fit as a fiddle at 28, had a job of another kind to do. This time his mission was to bomb the British in Malaya. This time he was greeted by R.A.F. pilots, who paid their tribute in lead. Their bullets found Pilot Iinuma, wounded him mortally. As one last supreme test of his endurance, he managed to fly his plane back to its base. Then he died.

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