The Australian War Memorial Collection. Test site
The remains of the Japanese Mitsubishi Zero B11-1 aircraft, flown by Sergeant Hajime Toyoshima from the Japanese Imperial Navy aircraft carrier Hiryu. Toyoshima participated in the first air raid on Darwin. During the raid on Darwin his plane was damaged, and he made a crash landing near Snake Bay on Melville Island (Yermalner). He was disarmed and captured by Matthias Ulungura (some sources instead use the name Matthias Ngapiatulawai) an Indigenous Australian of the Tiwi Islands, who then took him to Bathurst Island and handed him over to Sergeant Leslie J. Powell, 23 field company, Royal Australian Engineers. Powell used Toyoshima's service pistol to escort him into captivity as Powell had been sent to maintain demolition installations on the island and was unarmed.
Toyoshima was the first Japanese Prisoner of War taken on Australian soil. His POW number (pwj 910.1) was originally made out to the false alias of Tadao Minami, who claimed to be a sergeant pilot flying from Ambon to Darwin. Toyoshima's aircraft was also the first intact Zero captured by the allies. Toyoshima was later to die in the breakout of Japanese prisoners from the Cowra POW camp on the night of the 4/5 August 1944. The bugle he blew to signal its start is held in the AWM collection.
Sergeant (Sgt) Hajime Toyoshima (left), the first Japanese prisoner of war (POW). Toyoshima was the pilot of a Japanese Mitsubishi Zero aircraft, A6M2 Zero, tail code BII-124, from the Japanese imperi
Identification photographs of Sergeant Hajime Toyoshima, the first Japanese Prisoner of War. Toyoshima was the pilot of a Japanese Mitshubishi Zero B11-1 aircraft, from the Japanese Imperial Navy Airc
MELVILLE ISLAND, NT. 1942-02-27. THE JAPANESE MITSUBISHI ZERO B11-1 AIRCRAFT FROM THE JAPANESE IMPERIAL NAVY AIRCRAFT CARRIER HIRYU FLOWN BY SERGEANT HAJIME TOYOSHIMA, WHO PARTICIPATED IN THE FIRST AI
This film was taken by WX30779 Lieutenant Ronald Roy Crispe, Darwin Coast Artillery AIF, while on visit with a Darwin Water Transport vessel to Catholic missions at Bathurst Island and Melville Island
Aluminium plate with Japanese inscriptions. The plate lists instructions for an hydraulic front shock absorber. Piece of aluminium taken from Imperial Japanese Navy A6M2 Zero, serial 5349, tail code
Melville Island, 1944-10. An unidentified Indigenous man and some of the buildings of the Snake Bay settlement (Milikapiti) in the background. This settlement of Tiwi people was run by John Gribble fo
