CAF CenTex Wing's Nakajima B5N Kate (Replica)

The CenTex Wing of the Commemorative Air Force is the operator of this Nakajima B5N Kate (Replica) which is available for airshows, flybys and film throughout the USA.

This Japanese Nakajima B5N Kate (Replica) torpedo bomber was made from a highly modified North American T-6 Texan and a BT-13 tail section for the movie "Tora!Tora!Tora!" and has a replica torpedo underneath. It’s performance is actually equivalent to that of an original Kate.

The Nakajima B5N2 - Allied reporting-name 'Kate' - was the sole shipboard torpedo-bomber of the Japanese Navy at the start of the Pacific War. It was by then quite old, having been designed to meet a specification of 1935, and was already judged to be obsolescent. However, when first put into production it was a very advanced aircraft, and in war it out-performed any Allied ship borne torpedo-bomber until the arrival of the Grumman Avenger in mid-1942. In particular it was greatly superior to the Douglas TBD Devastator - the carrier-borne torpedo-plane of the US Fleet at the Battle of the Coral Sea and the decisive Battle of Midway.

B5N2’s played the main role in sinking the carrier Lexington at Coral Sea, Yorktown at Midway, and Hornet at the Battle of Santa Cruz in October 1942. Along with the destruction of the carrier Wasp by a Japanese submarine during the Guadalcanal campaign these were the major blows to the American carrier forces in the early phase of the Pacific War. These exploits supplemented the Kate's success in the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7 1941, in which 40 B5N2s armed with torpedoes - and 103 B5N2s armed with bombs - inflicted enormous damage on the US Pacific Fleet.

Total production of the B5N was 1,149 units. By the time of the Marianas campaign it had been largely replaced by its successor, the Nakajima B6N Tenzan, and was largely relegated to training and submarine patrol duty. However, at the huge air-sea Battle of the Philippine Sea there were 17 Kates in Admiral Ozawa's Mobile Fleet, aboard the ships of Carrier Division Three.

No actual Nakajima B5N Kates are still in existence, except for the few that can be found in the bottom of Truk Lagoon in the Pacific Ocean.

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