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| JAAF ? Hiko Sentai
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Aircraft History Built by Nakajima. Delivered to the Japanese Army Air Force (JAAF) as Type 1 Fighter / Ki-43-III Oscar manufacture number unknown. Wartime History Assigned to an unknown Sentai (Flying Regiment). During late 1944, this Oscar was likely was at nearby Fabrica Airfield on Negros. Mission History Sometime around December 1944 or early 1945, this Oscar took off on a mission and was hit by gunfire in air combat then force landed wheels up at Sagay Airfield on northern Negros. Wreckage The Oscar landed wheels up and the propeller blades bent as it slid across the ground. Until 1978, this Oscar was abandoned at Sagay Airfield in a clump of bamboo trees near the former runway. By the middle of the 1980s, the plane was scrapped by local workers in the area. Tony Feredo adds: "It was mid-March of 1978, I was 8 yrs old and it was my first time to visit our ancestral land on my mother side in Hacienda Bitoon (now Salgado Compound). The Hacienda’s main crop is sugar cane and offers a wide flat area. There is a tree-line on the north-western side that borders one of our campo (field section). Seeing that the area was just recently cut and flat, I ran towards the tree-line out of excitement of a boy that has seen a wide flat field for the first time. Upon reaching the tree-line there was bamboo clump that I ran towards to and as I rounded the bamboo trees, I was greeted with a big surprise as a crashed singe engine aircraft lay before my eyes. One of the cane cutters working for us mentions to me that its Japanese. I was in awe and the aircraft bore signs of bullets from half the fuselage, past the cockpit and ended in the mid cowling. The props were bent and part of the wing was buried below ground level. The canopy was broken but some of the plexiglass were still attached to the frame. Being exposed to the elements the skin of the aircraft were covered with moss and undergrowth in the bottom areas while the top had stains caused by weathering. I was so curious on what the aircraft is and its only when I got back to Manila to check my Dad’s WWII books and my own fighter aircraft book that I identified it as a Nakajima Ki-43 Hayabusa (Allied codename Oscar) The aircraft was also identified by an uncle who tells me that the aircraft was called Hayabusa by Japanese service crews while he was at Fabrica Airfield to work as “free labor” when it was being expanded. Armed with some knowledge, I went back to the areas in the middle 1980s but to my disappointment the aircraft was gone, removed piece by piece as the area was used for sugar cane farming. It was said that the locals stripped the aluminum skin and frame for scraps, some molded the aluminum into cups or bedpans. Some of the gauges from the control panel were used as paper weights." References Thanks to Tony Feredo for additional information Contribute
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