The Kawanshi, essentially an adapted Hudson Bomber belonging to CIC Thomas Blamey. The most visible adaptation being the distinctive twin turrets as illustrated.
This aircraft had a most unusual history, having the unique distinction of being used both as a transport for senior Australian and Japanese Officers during World War 2. Originally constructed as a Hudson bomber it was briefly used by the RAAF, as personal transport to the Commander in Chief of the Australian Army. General. Sir Thomas Blamey.
Blamey inspecting defences with North-Force along Rabbit Proof fence. The precursor to Border Force.
Blamey had a penchant for comfort and oversaw the fit-out of Its luxurious interior which included a water bed, cocktail bar, valet, and a sumptuous bathroom equipped with toilet,(fitted with radical light-weight plastic toilet seat) bidet, hot and cold water, gold taps and an ornate marble bath. Inexplicably the aircraft was captured intact, parked outside the Fantan Club in Lavender Street Singapore with the trans sexual contortionist Mata Hairy being the sole occupant. How it arrived there is a mystery as the aircraft was reportedly being used to tour the extremities of eastern defences. Fortunately the Commander in Chief was not with the plane having escaped on ‘urgent personal business’.
Mata Hairy. Only known photograph of the exotic contortionist. Photograph generously donated to us on this occasion by the Minister for Education. The Rt. Hon. Christopher Pyne. From his personal collection.
Kawanshi. Manufacturers of fine maritime flying boats.
Once captured It was then radically re-designed by the Kawanshi Flying Boat company as a medium sized luxury courier aircraft to transport senior IJN officers. A Shinto ceremony was performed to cleanse the “enemy aircraft” of evil intent. Once “cleansed” it was commissioned into the IJN. The directors of the Kawanshi Corporation were then faced with the daunting prospect of developing another code name for this unique Japanese Aircraft. They decided to adopt a novel approach. The firm held a naming competition, with an exciting first prize for a new ‘female’ code gendered aircraft. This established a continuity to the then current fleet of feminine gendered, Mavis’s, Betty’s Emily’s, Kate’s, Judy’s, Dinah’s, Sue’s, Delores’s and Vulgarias”. The first prize comprised a guided tour of territories annexed under the recently augmented Greater South East Asian Co Prosperity Sphere. The proposed first prize tour, (not bettered until recent activities by the Rt. Hon. Member for Mackellar Bronwyn Bishop) inspired hordes of Japanese salary workers indentured to work long hours with one indexed day per year as holiday.
Allied officers being told compassionately they’re ineligible for the prestigious naming competition by Japanese soldiers.
The planned prize for the winner of the competition comprised an unheard of, all expenses six week tour of recently acquired possessions. The competition was fierce, and in spite of rumours of Hari Kiri being committed by unsuccessful entrants and the first ever recorded immolation by a disappointed mother who pushed her explosive laden pram directly into a hangar of parked aircraft on the IJN Akagi, the response was overwhelmingly positive. Curiously, the submitted names puzzled the event organisers, the names not being female derived at all, but irrepressibly masculine. By far the most numerously proposed being; ‘the Richard, the William, the Long Tom, the Rooster and Knobby‘. It transpired that there had been a mistake in the wording of the competition, and instead of being ‘find an alternate name for glorious empire japan fighter for boys lady name’, it was misspelt, as ‘find big lady boy name’. Amid much laughter and the subsequent suicide by the competition typesetter consuming an entire Konichi typewriter carriage, the judges decided not to re-run the competition but reach a compromise position.
In light of the inducements on offer as part of the trans south east asian tour winning prize, they decided to encourage further enlistment and instill nationalistic fervour by picking of all the thousands of entries, a beautifully illustrated text recently submitted by a convalescing private Fushida of the 124th Teriyaki Infantry Battalion. His beautiful and evocative description of the delights and hardship encountered on the road to conquest, spoken in haiku, expressed the yearning for ‘Comfort’, and ‘Woman’. Indeed the new aircraft combined both feminine grace with creature comforts. Thus, “Comfort Woman’ as it was christened, encapsulated all the latest in Japanese technical knowhow, with an attendant illusion to the delights and exotic tastes on offer in the rest of the orient.
Private Fushida of 124th Teriyaki Battalion. Lithograph illustrating ravages of “HKLD” shortly before death. Lithograph kindly lent to us on this occassion by the Minister for Educashion the Rt. Hon. Christopher Pyne. From his personal collection.
Sadly, the successful entrant though enjoying a first class tour of the Empire, succumbed to the dreaded HKLD, (Hong Kong Long Dong). A terminal ailment allegedly brought about by personal contact with non-sterilised plastic toilet seats. As a precaution, (because it is entirely infectious and the lingering belief that it was left as a memento by the departing Commander in Chief AIF) the Comfort Woman was burned in shinto tradition on the tarmac at Honshu. Proving the truth behind the ancient Japanese proverb; ‘Sleep with enemy, catch more than fleas’.