was the

national airline A flag carrier is a transport company, such as an airline or shipping company, that, being locally registered in a given sovereign state, enjoys preferential rights or privileges accorded by the government for international operations. Hist ...

of the

Empire of Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent fo ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

History

With the start of the

Second Sino-Japanese War The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Th ...

, there was a tremendous need for air transport capability by the Japanese military, which had traditionally drawn on the resources of the civilian national flag carrier,

Japan Air Transport was the national airline of the Empire of Japan from 1928 to 1938. History Commercial aviation began in Japan with the privately held Japan Air Transport Institute, which pioneered passenger service between Sakai, Osaka and Tokushima on Shikok ...

, for its charter requirements. As Japan Air Transport's capacity was limited, conflict arose between the

Imperial Japanese Army The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...

and

Imperial Japanese Navy The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrender ...

over priority, and the government saw the need for the creation of a single, national

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situati ...

. The government bought a 50 percent share of Japan Air Transport, and renamed it the ''Dai Nippon Kōkū'' in December 1938. In the late 1930s, Dai Nippon Kōkū operated an extensive international network with a combination of foreign and domestic aircraft. The airline was linked with

Manchukuo National Airways Manchuria Aviation Company(traditional Chinese/Kyūjitai: 滿洲航空株式會社; simplified Chinese: 满州航空株式会社; Shinjitai: 満州航空株式会社; Japanese Hepburn: ''Manshū Kōkū Kabushiki-gaisha, "MKKK"'') was the nationa ...

for routes in Chosen and

Manchukuo Manchukuo, officially the State of Manchuria prior to 1934 and the Empire of (Great) Manchuria after 1934, was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Northeast China, Manchuria from 1932 until 1945. It was founded as a republic in 1932 afte ...

, and also had routes in the Japanese occupied portions of mainland

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

.Timetable and route map, 1939
20th century timetable museum Internally, Dai Nippon Kōkū linked the

Japanese home islands The Japanese archipelago (Japanese: 日本列島, ''Nihon rettō'') is a group of 6,852 islands that form the country of Japan, as well as the Russian island of Sakhalin. It extends over from the Sea of Okhotsk in the northeast to the East Chi ...

with the

Kwantung Leased Territory The Kwantung Leased Territory ( ja, 關東州, ''Kantō-shū''; ) was a leased territory of the Empire of Japan in the Liaodong Peninsula from 1905 to 1945. Japan first acquired Kwantung from the Qing Empire in perpetuity in 1895 in the Trea ...

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

Karafuto Karafuto Prefecture ( ja, 樺太庁, ''Karafuto-chō''; russian: Префектура Карафуто, Prefektura Karafuto), commonly known as South Sakhalin, was a prefecture of Japan located in Sakhalin from 1907 to 1949. Karafuto became t ...

, and

Saipan Saipan ( ch, Sa’ipan, cal, Seipél, formerly in es, Saipán, and in ja, 彩帆島, Saipan-tō) is the largest island of the Northern Mariana Islands, a Commonwealth (U.S. insular area), commonwealth of the United States in the western Pa ...

and

Palau Palau,, officially the Republic of Palau and historically ''Belau'', ''Palaos'' or ''Pelew'', is an island country and microstate in the western Pacific. The nation has approximately 340 islands and connects the western chain of the Caro ...

in the

South Seas Mandate The South Seas Mandate, officially the Mandate for the German Possessions in the Pacific Ocean Lying North of the Equator, was a League of Nations mandate in the "South Seas" given to the Empire of Japan by the League of Nations following Wo ...

. The airline served the west and central Pacific areas using converted military

flying boat A flying boat is a type of fixed-winged seaplane with a hull, allowing it to land on water. It differs from a floatplane in that a flying boat's fuselage is purpose-designed for floatation and contains a hull, while floatplanes rely on fusela ...

s. The airline operated some longer charter flights, including flights to Iran and Italy in 1939, and had long-term plans to serve Europe through two routes, one passing through Manchuria and Central Asia and the other running from Bangkok through India and the Middle East. After the start of the Pacific War in 1942, the airline became completely government-owned and operated as two separate units under the control of the

and

respectively.Routes development history etc.
JCAL By 1943, the airline flew a circular military convoy route from Taiwan through the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

and southern China. Operations continued until the

surrender of Japan The surrender of the Empire of Japan in World War II was announced by Emperor Hirohito on 15 August and formally signed on 2 September 1945, bringing the war's hostilities to a close. By the end of July 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy ...

in August 1945, despite heavy losses. Haneda Airport was seized by Allied forces in September, and the airline was formally disbanded in October. During the Allied occupation, surviving aircraft and equipment were confiscated, and domestic

civil aviation Civil aviation is one of two major categories of flying, representing all non-military and non-state aviation, both private and commercial. Most of the countries in the world are members of the International Civil Aviation Organization and work ...

in Japan was banned until the formation of

Japan Air Lines , also known as JAL (''Jaru'') or , is an international airline and Japan's flag carrier and largest airline as of 2021 and 2022, headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its main hubs are Tokyo's Narita International Airport and Haneda Airport, as ...

in 1951. Civil aviation to and from Japan was restored in 1947 with flights operated by

Northwest Orient Airlines Northwest Airlines Corp. (NWA) was a major American airline founded in 1926 and absorbed into Delta Air Lines, Inc. by a merger. The merger, approved on October 29, 2008, made Delta the largest airline in the world until the American Airlines- ...

and

Pan American Airways Pan American World Airways, originally founded as Pan American Airways and commonly known as Pan Am, was an American airline that was the principal and largest international air carrier and unofficial overseas flag carrier of the United States ...

from Haneda.

Aircraft

Douglas DC-4E The Douglas DC-4E was an American experimental airliner that was developed before World War II. The DC-4E never entered production due to being superseded by an entirely new design, the Douglas DC-4/C-54, which proved very successful. Many of t ...

* Kawanishi H6K2-L * Kawanishi H6K4-L * Kawanishi H8K2-L Seiku *

Kawasaki Ki-56 The Kawasaki Ki-56 ( ja, 一式貨物輸送機, Type 1 Freight Transport) was a Japanese two-engine light transport aircraft used during World War II. It was known to the Allies by the reporting name "Thalia". 121 were built between 1940 and 194 ...

Kokusai Ki-59 The was an early 1940s light transport monoplane built by Nippon Kokusai Koku Kogyo K.K for the Imperial Japanese Army as a development of the Teradako-ken TK-3 which had first flown in 1938. Development The Teradako-ken TK-3 was a prototype ...

* Mitsubishi K3M3-L * Mitsubishi MC-20 * Mitsubishi MC-21 * Nakajima AT-2 * Nakajima/Douglas DC-2 *

Nakajima Ki-6 The was a licensed-produced version of the Fokker Super Universal transport built by Nakajima Aircraft Company in the 1930s. Initially used as an airliner, the militarized version was used by the Imperial Japanese Army in a variety of roles, r ...

* Showa/Nakajima L2D2 * Tachikawa LO * Tachikawa Y-59 The airline contracted to purchase long-range

Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor The Focke-Wulf Fw 200 ''Condor'', also known as ''Kurier'' to the Allies (English: Courier), was a German all-metal four-engined monoplane originally developed by Focke-Wulf as a long-range airliner. A Japanese request for a long-range maritime p ...

aircraft from Germany in 1939, but never took delivery.

Accidents and incidents

;8 December 1938: Nakajima/Douglas DC-2 (J-BBOH, ''Fuji'') crashed in the East China Sea off the Kerama Islands due to engine failure, killing 10 of 12 on board; the two survivors were rescued by steamship ''Miyake Maru''. ;17 May 1939: Lockheed 14-WG3B Super Electra (J-BCOZ, ''Kuma'') struck a fence on takeoff from Fukuoka Airport and crashed, killing six of 11 on board. ;26 August 1944: J.I.A transport piloted by

Toshio Kuroiwa was a warrant officer and ace fighter pilot in the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during the January 28 Incident and the Second Sino-Japanese War. During the January 28 Incident on 22 February 1932, while assigned to the aircraft carrier ''Kaga ...

went missing off the Malay Peninsula.Aviation Safety database Network
/ref>

References

* {{Authority control Defunct airlines of Japan Empire of Japan Airlines established in 1938 Airlines disestablished in 1945 1945 disestablishments in Japan Defunct seaplane operators Japanese companies established in 1938