Kiku Nishizaki

was one of the two pioneer Japanese women aviators who made the first international flight across the Sea of Japan. Born Kiku Matsumoto in Kamisato, Saitama, her adventurous experiences became one of the models for the heroine of a very popular NHK Asadora TV drama Kumo no Jūtan (ja) in 1976.

Early life

Kiku Nishizaki, née Matsumoto started working as an elementary school teacher after finishing Saitama Girls' Higher Normal School. On a school trip she took pupils and visited Ojima Airfield in Ota City, Gunma Prefecture and saw airplanes and aviation, and she was fascinated to retire the school soon after in 1931 and entered an aviation school.

Aviation career Kiku Nishizaki was licensed a second class seaplane aviator in 1933 and visited her hometown in October aboard an ichi-san type seaplane (一三式練習機 (ja)). An Ichi-san type, or 1-3 type K1Y2 seaplane was a single engine double-seated double wing training aircraft adopted by the Imperial Japanese Navy between World War I and World War II. As many as 100 of the planes were manufactured at Yokosuka Naval Air Technical Arsenal, Nakajima Aircraft Company, Kawanishi Aircraft Company and Watanabe Steel Foundry. Many were withheld from the private sector around 1935, and the plane was used at aviation schools and for business including newspapers.

She and Choko Mabuchi, two seaplane women aviators were selected as pilots in command to visit Manchukuo as ambassadors of goodwill. Two Salmanson 2A type land based aircraft were prepared, and each named for the aviators' first names: for Kiku (chrysanthemum), “Shiragiku” or white chrysanthemum, and Choko (butterfly), “Kichō” or yellow butterfly. Their flight across the Sea of Japan was during the time when Japanese news companies competed hard to publish news faster: two major incidents made them realize that airplane dramatically changed how they received photo negatives from remote area so that they would print the news faster than others. Both Asahi Shimbun and the Mainichi Shimbun had struggled to report the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake when they lost train services to carry photo negatives to the head office, which had been evacuated to Osaka.

In August 1929, a zeppelin visited Japan when Asahi defeated Mainichi; they predicted the navigation route, interviewed the German crews at the landing spot, and airlifted the photo negatives and printed the extra issue the evening of the landing. Mainichi published the news on the regular issue the next morning by misreading Zeppelin's aviation. As the government of Japan announced their plan to send both Nishizaki and Mabuchi fly to Manchukuo, Asahi had invested into a news aviation team with more staff and better aircraft than Mainichi, and Asahi succeeded to fly their reporters to Beijing and prepared to report the flight of Nishizaki and Mabuchi when they reached China in 1934.

Kiku Nishizaki and Choko Mabuchi left Tokyo Haneda airport to Manchukuo on 22 October, flew across the Sea of Japan, and landed at Xinjing, now Changchun airport on 4 November 1934. She and Mabuchi completed their mission when the latter touched down at Xinjing (Changchun) on 5 November.

Asahi reported the flight of Nishizaki (née Matsumoto) day by day when she arrived to China later than expected due rough weather and engine malfunction forced her to take emergency landing, until she touched down on the final destination Xinjing airport. At 10:10 am, 3 November, Nishizaki departed Sinŭiju and reached Fengtian East airport at 11:50 am to accomplish the final leg, then arriving at Xinjing the next day, she made good will flight around greater Xinjing, waiting for Mabuchi arriving on 5 November 1934. Nishizaki received the Harmon Trophy for her adventurous flight to Manchukuo in October. Nishizaki talked about the whole experience in a book.

Three years later and in July 1937, a second plan was announced to fly a woman aviator on long distance commemorating the municipal administration of then Toyohara, Karafuto Prefecture, Japan (presently Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Sakhalin Oblast, Russia). Selected for the mission, but Kiku Nishizaki failed and made an emergency sea landing at Tsugaru Strait, rescued by a cargo ship. The increasing public feelings trying to keep women away from maneuvering against her wish to continue flying, who volunteered to Army that she would transfer injured soldiers from the front to hospitals: Army was the largest stage for aviators (In 1937, Asahi Newspaper completed a very long distance flight to reach from Japan to Europe aboard "Ki - 15", a prototype of Nakajima Ki-27 Army reconnaissance plane.) The headquarters had arranged public poll naming it Kamikaze. Asahi flew it to reach London breaking the world record at less than 95 hour, and it proved that domestic manufactured aircraft were fast enough to fulfill military standards. She died in 1979.

Cultural references In 2009, a Saitama newspaper ran a biography of Kinku Nishizaki in five parts starting on 18 May and completed on 10 June. The series included her portrait as a forerunner of a gender-equal society.