Kawasaki Ki-56

The Kawasaki Ki-56, called the Army Type 1 Freight Transport by the Imperial Japanese Army and Thalia by the Allies, was a twin-engine light transport aircraft of the Second World War. Kawasaki had already built the American Lockheed Model 14 Super Electra under licence, and in September 1939 the army air headquarters asked the company to design an improved version. The result had an enlarged fuselage with a large freight door in the port rear side and two Nakajima Ha-25 radial engines. Two prototypes were followed by a series run of roughly 120 aircraft between 1940 and 1943, some of them built by Tachikawa. Ki-56 transports dropped paratroops on the airfield and refineries near Palembang in Sumatra, where defenders mistook them for friendly Lockheed Hudsons until the parachutes opened. Some later flew in the Soviet Far East.