Meet the Nakajima Kikka, Japan’s Jet Fighter: On August 6, 1945, the United States Army Air Force B-29 bomber “Enola Gay” dropped a five-ton atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. It had a blast equivalent to the power of 15,000 tons of TNT and reduced four square miles of the city to ruins and immediately killed some 80,000 people.
The destruction of Hiroshima overshadowed the next day’s event – the first flight of the Nakajima Kikka (“Orange Blossom”), the Empire of Japan’s first jet aircraft. It was developed so late in the war that it was also the combat aircraft’s only flight before the conflict ended.
Also known as K koku Nig Heiki (“Imperial Weapon No. 2”), the aircraft was developed as a ground attack and anti-ship aircraft. It was not entirely a “new” design, rather it was based on the Messerschmitt Me 262 “Schwalbe” jet-powered fighter that was developed by Nazi Germany. As a result, it has earned the distinction of being the Japanese Me 262.
In 1942, the Japanese air attaché to Germany witnessed a number of the flight trials of the Me 262, and his report was so enthusiastic that Imperial Japanese Navy officials soon directed the Nakajima firm to begin the development of an aircraft-based on the German designs.