2023 年 40 巻 p. 24-43
The importance of general trading companies in Japan’s economic development is widely acknowledged, but little is known about their role in the transfer of technology and innovations. We address this issue by examining the emerging aircraft industry in Japan during the 1920s, focusing on its main foreign partner, France, and one of the largest Japanese groups, Mitsubishi. We show that while the French influence in the Japanese market remained unchallenged up to the mid-1920s, it faded away afterward due to the absence of French trading companies on the ground, despite considerable support from the French government. This contrasts with our analysis of the Japanese side. Using its worldwide network, Mitsubishi Trading Co. provided Mitsubishi Motors Co. with appropriate information and contracts with French as well as German companies. It eventually succeeded in creating joint ventures with these close partners. Their early failure in 1926 sparked a shift from importing technology via trade agreements to developing the industry through manufacturing (e.g., creation of Mitsubishi Aircraft Co. in 1928). Thus, Mitsubishi Trading proved to be an efficient early market developer for the Japanese side, whereas French business suffered from not having similar trading companies in Japan and being overdependent on state structures.
The positive role of general trading companies (sōgō shōsha) in the economic development of Japan is well acknowledged and can hardly be overemphasised, especially in the early stages of the Japanese industrial revolution up to the 1910s. Conditions changed after World War I (WWI). Japanese industry needed to find new markets for its products and new sources of supply in order to develop the most innovative sectors. Leading the field in terms of innovation was aeronautics, full of cutting-edge technologies. General trading companies faced new challenges, namely the need to import new products such as aircraft to satisfy demand (mainly from the military) and bring in technological knowledge to satisfy Japanese manufacturers.
Like most other countries at the time, Japan had no specific background in aeronautical activities in 1918. However, during WWI its navy had become the first in the world to launch an air raid from the sea when it attacked German troops stationed in Tsingtao in the autumn of 1914. This event aside, Japan was largely disconnected from the dynamic aeronautical industries of France, Germany, Great Britain and Italy. The technological progress accomplished during WWI produced aircraft that had been unimaginable 20 years earlier. In France and Great Britain, the sector was employing several thousand people in 1918 and airplanes could fly at a speed of over 150 km/h and an altitude of over 5,000 m. After the United States joined the war in April 1917 it attempted to ramp up the scale of its production to match that of Europe’s warring nations; however, due to lack of time it gave up its plans and relied on French manufacturers throughout 1918. For Japan, there was no urgent need to develop an aeronautics sector, but there was a need to follow up on the innovations made abroad. Despite being an ally of Great Britain and thus France since the beginning of the war, Japan could not expect to benefit from their direct cooperation. The two countries were fully engaged in the war effort and initially dismissed Japan’s requests. This changed, however, in the summer of 1918, when Japan intervened in Siberia against the Bolsheviks during the so-called Siberian Intervention. In this context, France decided to offer Japan technological support in the form of an aeronautical mission. Of course, this decision was also designed to secure a favourable and strong position for France in Japan’s emerging aeronautical market. This was an important consideration as the war drew to a close, since France needed to find new markets for its surplus production.
Given that aeronautical activity had hitherto been developed exclusively for military purposes, the end of the war came as a severe shock to manufacturers. It became crucial to find new opportunities and develop demand on a global scale through “emerging markets.” Great Britain and France quickly used their colonial empires for this purpose, but once again, this was both funded and initiated by the government. True emerging markets were actually to be found in Eastern Europe, South America and Japan. Indeed, in 1919, Japan was a pure emerging market in aviation, while aviation itself was emerging on the global stage as the most innovative high-tech field at the time. At the end of WWI then, Japan was an important emerging market for France; meanwhile at the domestic level, the Japanese military and leading industrial firms viewed aviation as a crucial new sector for development. In this sense, Japanese aviation can be described as a kind of “dual emerging market.”
The importance of general trading companies in the development of Japan’s foreign trade cannot be overstated, yet their role in boosting industrial development—particularly in high-tech sectors like aviation—has so far been unappreciated. The case of Mitsubishi is particularly interesting as it was the most “industrial” zaibatsu at the end of WWI, having been the first to enter the aviation sector. The group possessed advanced technological capacities, a huge capital base and a close relationship with leading political and military figures. More importantly, it could take advantage of the overseas activities of its general trading arm, Mitsubishi Trading Co. (Mitsubishi Shōji, hereafter Mitsubishi Trading).
France had been the world leader in the aviation industry since the 1900s. By 1913 it employed four times more workers in the field than the United States, and half of the planes hangered in Great Britain, Italy and Russia were French-made (through imports or licensed manufacturing).2 In 1914, none of the engines used by the Royal Flying Corps were of British manufacture.3 WWI greatly stimulated aircraft production in each of the warring states, so that by the time it ended, British and German aviation were quantitatively comparable to the French. However, the quality of the latter remained unequalled: the French Air Force recorded a death rate three times lower than any other country during the war.4 In 1918, France continued to lead the aircraft industry and, unlike Germany, was on the winning side. The German industry was virtually destroyed, having lost both the war and the right to produce airplanes. It is no surprise, therefore, that the Japanese government and businesses chose France as their model for developing the aeronautical sector.
This paper analyses French activities in the fledgling Japanese market and Mitsubishi Trading’s activities in aircraft production during the 1920s. It explores the differing attitudes of the French and Japanese, as well as the structure and results of the Japanese aviation industry during the same period. To do so, the authors worked mainly on archives from the French government in Paris (Ministry for Foreign Affairs) and Mitsubishi in Tokyo.
During WWI, the French aviation industry produced some 96,000 engines and 52,000 planes. Production peaked during the summer of 1918, when 2,500 planes and 4,000 engines were delivered monthly by a workforce of over 150,000 people (up from just 2,000 in 1913).5 With the advent of peace, sales plummeted, from 1.9 billion French francs in 1918 to just 74 million in 1920.6 The French aircraft industry urgently needed to find sales outlets abroad and somehow succeeded in this (exports accounted for between one-fifth and one-quarter of the domestic market during the 1920s).7 In 1918, Japan became its first official customer.
1. The French Faure Mission (1919–1920) and its consequencesAfter the Russian Revolution took place in February 1917, France and Great Britain repeatedly asked Japan to send troops to the Eastern Front to replace Russia.8 The Japanese were reluctant, requesting support and concessions in return that their Western allies would not concede. It was not until the Bolshevik Revolution in October 1917 that Japan decided to stage a genuine intervention, limited to Eastern Siberia. In April 1918 the Japanese military officially asked the French government permission to purchase one hundred aircraft and other related materials.9 This was accepted on the condition that Japan began military action in the war. After some hesitation, a deal was struck in August that year. The French prime minister Georges Clemenceau, who nurtured a lifelong fondness for Japan,10 stepped in to offer an aeronautical military mission to Japan at the expense of France. This generous decision was made while the deadly Great War was still ongoing and created an extremely positive image among Japanese political and military leaders of France as the ally of Japan. From the French perspective, this bold move had multiple aims: to strengthen bilateral relations; to consolidate France’s influence over the Japanese armed forces; to enhance Japan’s ability to intervene militarily against the Bolsheviks in the Far East (Siberian Intervention in August 1918); and finally, to create business opportunities in Japan after the war ended.
The French aeronautical mission was truly of great historical importance: it laid the foundations of Japanese aviation within the military. Recently, Christian Polak’s work has stressed these positive aspects of the Faure Mission.11 The mission was an unparalleled event and French aeronautical products remained the most used and manufactured in Japan throughout the 1920s. The Salmson 2A-2 was the star model in post-war France and was imported by the Faure Mission to Japan. It soon became the star model there too: some 600 were manufactured under licence between 1923 and 1927 by Kawasaki and Army arsenals (the Koishikawa Army Arsenal and the Tokorozawa Army Air Division Arsenal).12 As we will see below, Hanriot and Nieuport-Delage planes were also produced in the hundreds and formed the bulk of the Japanese air force during the 1920s. French engines were also produced on an impressive scale, in particular the Hispano-Suiza models manufactured by Mitsubishi: three hundred Hispano 200 HPs were produced between 1920 and 1924 and over one thousand Hispano 300 HPs between 1920 and 1934.13 In fact, the Hispano 300 HP broke the world speed record in 1923 (375 km/h) and its 450 HP version broke it again in December 1924, reaching 448 km/h. It held this record for almost a decade until 1932.14 Kawasaki and Mitsubishi were not the only companies to be strongly influenced by the French aviation industry; there was also the Nakajima Aircraft Company. Accordingly, we disagree with Jürgen Melzer, who in his recent study dates the end of “the French Decade” to 191915 and begins the “early German influence” a little prematurely by our reckoning.16
Despite the impressive feats achieved by French technology, divergent opinions exist on the Faure Mission, with some being much more critical. One study by Rémy Porte, a military officer, even describes the Faure Mission as “a failure.”17 Having read the same archives, we have to say we do rather agree with this assessment. Colonel Jacques-Paul Faure, who led the mission, faced many difficulties from the outset and even he was unhappy with its results. He constantly complained about the lack of support from France and despaired over the poor supply of engines and parts.18 Moreover, Faure soon noticed that some Japanese military officers were “Germanophiles.” This was shocking for him and he stressed it many times in his reports. Faure’s rigorous attitude came to embarrass his superiors, who eventually (but confidentially) criticised him for his lack of diplomacy.19 The military attaché at the French embassy in Tokyo (Captain de Lapomarède) disagreed with Faure and was optimistic, but Faure’s remarks were perceptive and foresaw the dark clouds gathering over French aviation activities in Japan. Already in 1920, the British and Italians were making commercial overtures to Japan. French military officers were unable to fight back because their status as non-commercial civil servants prevented them from doing so. In addition, French companies did not send any sales agents to Japan. When the Faure Mission ended, some of its members requested to stay in Japan in order to make a living there. They could have become influential engineers or businessmen, but their decisions were supported neither by the French authorities nor by any companies based in France. Although some of these former members did remain in Japan, they did not carry on the work of the Faure Mission (one, for instance, moved to the naval sector). We can thus hardly agree with Polak’s vision of the Faure Mission as a resounding success.
Still, the Faure Mission had a political offshoot in the employment of a French officer, Major Marcel Jauneaud, by the Japanese government. Jauneaud stayed in Japan from July 1921 to September 1922.20 He advised high-ranking Japanese officials on air strategy and suggested a blueprint for the future of aviation. He drafted a plan for Franco-Japanese cooperation in developing new airplanes, especially long-range models. Paul Claudel, the French ambassador in Tokyo, supported this “genius” idea, seeing it as an opportunity for France to gain a political foothold in Japan just as the British had decided to end their 20-year political alliance with the country.21 Moreover, this would help “maintain the balance of power in the Pacific.”22 Back in Paris, Jauneaud continued to promote this project throughout 1923 and suggested setting up a Franco-Japanese Aeronautical Research Centre based in the French capital.23 The idea was to link this institution to a new “Service Technique de l’Aéronautique japonaise,”, formed by merging the army and navy air research services into a single body.24 This initiative was acclaimed by the French under-secretary of aeronautics, Laurent Eynac, who even imagined “opening up our research centres and industrial plants to the Japanese.”25 It was also approved by Raymond Poincaré, the prime minister and minister of foreign affairs, who believed it would “contribute to the development of our political and industrial influence in Japan.”.26 Everything seemed to be fine until November 1923.
After Jauneaud returned triumphantly to France in September 1922, the under-secretary of aeronautics immediately appointed a certain Major Marcel Têtu to the role of aeronautical attaché at the French embassy in Tokyo, in order to develop French influence. One year later, in November 1923, Têtu suddenly attacked Jauneaud’s plan, dismissing it as “utterly utopian.”.27 A special report was then demanded by the Ministry of War in order to settle the dispute. The military attaché in Tokyo, Captain Baron, was put in charge of its writing. He sided with neither Têtu nor Jauneaud, instead disparaging the aviation industry, which he considered a minor issue in the general armament market. He believed that securing “massive contracts” in Japan was impossible because the Japanese armed forces were attempting to build airplanes by their own efforts. He even advocated a policy of “stepping back,”, stating that “we should not attempt to influence the development of Japanese aircraft construction programmes,”, since this would mean interfering with Japan’s secret national defence plans, causing political rifts.28 He concluded by saying that the only path left open to aviation was to sell licences and patents. To do so, Captain Baron recommended sending “travelling sales representatives in aviation” (commis voyageurs en aviation) to Japan to prospect the market and persuade Japanese customers of the superiority of French products. At the same time, after consulting Têtu about a “note secrète” submitted by Jauneaud, Claudel refused to communicate it to the Japanese army. Têtu then put the final nail in the coffin of Jauneaud’s plan in March by claiming it was “a pure pipe dream,” since there was no prospect of a “collaboration between French science and Japanese money.”29 Claudel decided to fully support Têtu and dismiss Jauneaud’s ideas.30
As we have seen, the French objective was to gain exclusive influence over the Japanese aeronautical sector. This ambitious view informed Jauneaud’s “dreams” of having the two countries work in full cooperation. It also explains how the French diplomatic corps could have dreamed of replacing Great Britain as Japan’s ally of choice in Asia. However, this policy became problematic as it implied full cooperation with Japan, which was ultimately deemed undesirable. So what replaced it?
2. The failure of French commercial policy (1924–1925)In April 1924, having dismissed Jauneaud, the French ambassador outlined France’s new air policy in the following words:31
As organisers and suppliers to Japanese aviation we have an excellent position. That does not mean we should expect them to put their entire fate in our hands, confide their secrets to us, make us their exclusive supplier and finance all the costly trials we deem fit to have them carry out. We shall obtain results with these unimaginative Asians not by seducing them with ambitious and rather unrealistic projects but by being modest and persistent in our actions, and by maintaining their belief that it is in their interest to use our inventions and industry rather than those of the neighbour.
The new policy was thus to accept international competition in the nascent Japanese market. However, there were several serious stumbling blocks to this. Firstly, implementing such a policy required the sending of “travelling sales representatives in aviation” to Japan, as intelligently proposed by Baron, yet none were sent. Secondly, the plan relied on private business, yet French companies never had any direct contact with the Japanese market. They had hitherto been passive, were mainly in contact with the embassy and had no representative in Japan nor trading companies working on their behalf. As a matter of fact, all still relied on Têtu, the aeronautical attaché in Tokyo. But was he a sales agent? Certainly he was not. Having rejected Jauneaud’s ambitious idea of Franco-Japanese cooperation in aviation technology, what could Têtu do? Very little. He decided to focus on increasing French “aeronautical propaganda,” but here too he faced difficulties. In June 1924, a long-distance flight was successfully carried out from Paris to Hanoi and then Tokyo (by Captain Georges Pelletier-Doisy flying a Breguet XIX as far as Shanghai and then a Breguet XIV equipped with a Lorraine 400 HP engine). This provided great publicity for the French aircraft industry32 and sparked a kind of “aviation fever” (hikōnetsu) in Japan, but similar exploits were achieved by American, British and Argentinian pilots that same year and the French had to share the bounty. Têtu was aware of the need to respond to this competition. In order to promote French aviation (through what he called “propagande aéronautique”), he thus requested the cooperation of the navy, but the latter refused to dispatch any of its units on at least two occasions, in 1923 and 1926, despite them being nearby in the Sea of China, and despite support from the prime minister himself.33
These difficulties left room for German competition to rise. Renowned German engineers came to Japan at the request of various companies: Claude Dornier went to work with Kawasaki, while Adolf Rohrbach and Alexander Baumann teamed up with Mitsubishi. In 1925, Têtu’s reports became openly alarmist: “the Japanese plants are infested with German engineers, and the best ones,” he wrote, causing the pressure to be felt at the highest level of government.34 Later that year, the French embassy even warned one French businessman, Henry Potez, that Mitsubishi was no longer a reliable partner and was going “to abandon him for Fokker” (Anthony Fokker was a Dutch aviation manufacturer but trained and worked in Germany during the war; he moved to the US in 1923).35 Even the partnership between Potez and Mitsui was thrown into doubt, as the French company was about to send some new high-tech material used in the production of airframes (“cellule 25”).36 This contract could help counteract the growing German influence in Japanese aviation, but it also raised a more general concern: what would happen if French technology leaked to Germany through Japanese partners? The French company was at a loss as to what to do,37 and the prime minister himself expressed concern about this state of affairs.38 French diplomats in Tokyo finally cleared Mitsui of all suspicion, stating that they were a “trustworthy partner”39 since they sought to keep the deal “secret even from Japanese officials.”40 Mitsui’s commitment was genuine; it focused on French manufacturers and did not deal with any German businesses in the 1920s, instead purchasing more than 10 engine models from the likes of Breguet, Farman and Lorraine.41 This was due to its special relationship with the Nakajima Aircraft Company, which dedicated its efforts to the needs of the Japanese army. French diplomats also ultimately admitted that except for Mitsubishi, Japanese partners such as Mitsui and the Tokyo Gas and Electric Company (examined earlier the same year) were trustworthy. In fact, partnerships with them were now considered a good thing, as they would check the German influence (“Fokker, Dornier, etc.”) in Japan.42 Mitsubishi, for its part, was considered overfriendly to Germany and was banned from any further cooperation with France.
Interestingly, in the midst of this “German storm,” Têtu, the aeronautical attaché at the embassy, came to express fierce criticism over the French policy. Looking back at the Faure Mission, he stressed the negative image created by the delayed or cancelled deliveries of material from France at the time (as Faure himself had explained). He also confided that French aviation needed to make better offers to the Japanese and provide better products than the Germans (especially the Rohrbach seaplanes, as we will see later).43 In his report for 1925, Têtu even blamed the French navy for its “unwillingness” (mauvaise volonté) to cooperate.44 As a matter of fact, French aviation did not take any proactive measures. This was particularly damaging at a time when French airplanes were being challenged technically. On top of this, the navy’s refusal to help promote French aviation demolished any hope of flying the flag of French industry in Japan. By early 1926, it was already clear that the change of policy in 1924 (when Jauneaud’s plan had been dismissed) was a failure. The shift to a focus on commercial contracts had not been supported by any proper trade structures or sales agents; the private sector remained on the sidelines. Why was this? Such apathy may be explained by the boom in the French aviation market beginning in 1924, while the technical difficulties were perhaps due to the fact that French military aviation in the mid-1920s restricted airplanes to the role of reconnaissance.45
Despite its flaws, the Faure Mission represented the apex of French influence in Japanese aviation and its peak dominance in the market. This momentum lasted until 1925, particularly in the military. Sixteen of the twenty aircraft imported by the Japanese army from 1912 to 1925 were French (of the others, three were British and one was German). Moreover, all but the German aircraft had a French engine (the German plane had a BMW motor).46 The Japanese navy also imported French planes: two-thirds of the engine models imported between 1912 and 1927 were French (12 out of 18, along with two American, three British and on German).47 However, in 1926 the tide turned. Of the 14 aircraft imported by the army up to 1935, only 3 were French (two in 1926, one in 1935), compared to six American, two German, two British and one Italian.48 In other words, from 1927 to 1934, for eight full years, not one single French aircraft was brought to Japan by the army. A new trend arose in the navy too, which increasingly used Japanese engines: six from 1928 to 1932, along with six imported engine models (four French and two British), and from 1933, the navy exclusively used Japanese-manufactured engines.49
Clearly, the previously favourable tide turned permanently against France between 1925 and 1927. The principal factor was the political decision to adopt a purely commercial policy and the failure of French business to enter the nascent Japanese market. This left a vacuum in which German influence could grow, sparking in turn another shift in French policy: the development of a suspicious attitude toward Japanese partners and even a ban on Mitsubishi. Whereas the Japanese side was on the move, the French hesitated to cooperate with Japan and failed to grasp the proper dynamics of the emerging Japanese aeronautical market. They decided not to actively support the development of Japanese technology, failed to send any sales representatives and remained unable to efficiently promote French planes in the face of foreign competition. This undermined French exports to Japan, but to what extent? Further inquiry into the aeronautical activities of Mitsubishi Trading during the 1920s will help us understand the situation and what was at stake there from the Japanese business side.
In its surveys of Japanese aviation, the French administration did not fail to note the importance of “two large civil agencies that are very powerful in Japan: Mitsui (operating mostly on behalf of the army) and Mitsubishi (operating for the navy).”50 However, it did not analyse these structures in detail, causing a certain confusion to prevail: no distinction was made between the general trading companies and the industrial companies that coexisted within the general framework of these zaibatsu. For example, French reports ignored, or at the very least overlooked, the existence of Mitsubishi Trading and Mitsubishi Internal Combustion Motors Manufacturing (hereafter “Mitsubishi Motors”51) within the Mitsubishi Holding Company (Mitsubishi gōshi). This is unfortunate, because as we will see, this structure proved to be highly efficient at obtaining information and developing a coordinated growth strategy in a high-tech sector like aviation.
In the 1910s, Mitsubishi already had a long history of close ties with the government in general, and the army and navy in particular, since its creation by Iwasaki Yatarō in the 1870s. The company had grown to be one of the largest industrial groups in Japan and was restructured at the end of the WWI. Mitsubishi Trading was founded in 1918 and managed all the group’s trade business through its worldwide network of offices. An independent factory was also separated from Mitsubishi Shipbuilding Company in May 1919 to be dedicated to the production of combustion motors (except those used in ship propulsion).52 A year later, this factory became Mitsubishi Motors (with a capital of five million yen). Its core activity was the production of aeronautical frames and engines. This company relied on Mitsubishi Trading’s network of offices to obtain reliable information from Europe and make deals with European manufacturers. In the following sections we will analyse two phases of Mitsubishi’s business: the “French connection” period up to 1925 and the “German connection” period that followed it.
1. Mitsubishi’s French connectionSince its beginnings in the aviation business Mitsubishi had enjoyed a close relationship with several French companies. In 1916, the navy asked Mitsubishi to study the feasibility of producing a carrier-borne aircraft. This was obviously out of reach for Japanese engineers at the time, but it led Mitsubishi to study French aircraft technology.53 After lengthy negotiations with the French engine manufacturer Hispano-Suiza, Mitsubishi Trading succeeded in signing a contract to import its 200 HP model on 5 December 1917.54 A Renault 70 HP engine was also eventually purchased, to be studied by Mitsubishi Shipbuilding.55 Its air-cooled system particularly interested Japanese engineers.56 Fifteen units of this motor were subsequently produced under licence between 1918 and 1922.57 The Paris office of Mitsubishi Trading soon started negotiations to obtain the manufacturing rights for the latest Hispano models. These lasted for more than a year, from March 1918 to August 1919.58 Mitsubishi eventually bought the licence for Hispano-Suiza’s water-cooled V8 engine models and after several experiments, rolled out serial production in 1920. The Hispano-Suiza models were praised by both the navy and the army but the Renault engine was deemed unsatisfactory.59 More than one thousand units of the Hispano 300 HP (710 units) and 400 HP (439 units) were manufactured by Mitsubishi Motors until 1934, installed in nine different types of airplanes. This resounding success helped the company lay strong foundations as a motor manufacturer.60 Mitsubishi recognised these Hispano-Suiza engines to be the best in the world.61
Everyone was extremely satisfied with these results and Mitsubishi Trading continued to expand its French connection. In 1921, Kuga Teisaburō was appointed as representative of the company’s local office (shucchōjo) in Paris, where Mitsubishi had begun its activities during WWI. The Paris office was originally overseen by Mitsubishi’s London branch (shiten) but in 1922 was placed directly under the authority of head office in Tokyo. Then in June 1924, it was officially made a branch office itself (with a local business form: Société Anonyme Française Mitsubishi). This promotion of the Paris office through Kuga’s work had one very specific goal: to expand the aviation business (and more generally, the armament sector) in direct link with Tokyo, as explained in the following internal memorandum:62
Initially, our job in France was to manage silk imports into the Lyon market. In addition to this, in terms of exports, wine and luxury goods were popular and profitable articles; however, after the war, French aircraft gained worldwide attention and we promptly began surveying this field at the request not only of the Japanese navy but of the army representatives working here. We therefore began handling orders from the army and are now competing with Mitsui as its most important supplier.
In 1922, Mitsubishi Trading purchased the licence for two Nieuport planes (81E design) and from 1923 to 1926 was the exclusive seller of Hanriot planes in Japan. It also managed to obtain exclusivity on all the latter’s licences in Japan and China.63 From 1922 to 1925, Kuga purchased seven different French licences, mainly for engines.64 This enabled Mitsubishi Motors to produce over one hundred of its Army Training Airplane Model No. 1 (140 units between 1923 and 1927), based on the Hanriot HD-14.65 It also enabled the company to produce high-quality engines for the best Japanese planes: the Hispano-Suiza 300 HP, manufactured under licence from 1923, equipped the Army Fighter No. 4 designed by Nakajima (based on the Nieuport-Delage NiD-29).66 Thanks to its engine, this plane could fly at a speed of 243 km/h, extremely fast for the day. This model remained the army’s “star” aircraft for an entire decade67 (608 units were produced).68
The activities of Mitsubishi Trading did not stop there, however. The company also pursued a general policy of building airframes and designing new planes. In this, it went into partnership with the French aircraft designer Émile Dewoitine from September 1923 and was soon joined by his leading partner, the engine manufacturer Hispano-Suiza.69 Throughout 1924 they laid plans for a new company, Constructions Aéronautiques Dewoitine, and in order to advance the project (and convince the army) a training and promotional mission was sent from France to Japan.70 One reason for Mitsubishi’s involvement in such a plan was its competition with Mitsui in the French technologies market, as Kuga explained: “At the time, Mitsui already held Breguet and Nieuport licences. If they had also obtained Dewoitine planes, we would have had to stay on the sidelines with our arms folded.”71 As a result, in January 1925 Mitsubishi created a joint venture with Dewoitine and Hispano to produce airplanes designed by Dewoitine and equipped with Hispano engines. The company was financed by Mitsubishi (250,000 French francs), Dewoitine (380,000 French francs) and Hispano (370,000 French francs). Orders were received from the French and Serbian governments, but disaster struck in February 1926 when a fatal accident occurred during a test. This led the French government to cancel its order and the company began to collapse. It was finally liquidated in November 1926. Mitsubishi lost a huge amount of money in the affair (more than 300,000 yen – around 800,000 French francs)72 and Kuga was forced to quit the Mitsubishi office in Paris.
It is worth noting that Jauneaud’s plan for a Franco-Japanese joint venture in aeronautical research, outlined just a few years earlier, was actually made a reality by Mitsubishi and its French partners in 1925–1926. However, it ended in early failure. According to one French historian, Hispano-Suiza may have used both Dewoitine and Mitsubishi to serve its own strategy to make a fresh start in the business.73 This hypothesis is supported by the French ambassador’s previously cited comment that “[we, the French, cannot expect the Japanese] to finance all the costly trials we deem fit to have them carry out.74 According to an internal source, its seems that Mitsubishi was pushed into this partnership by Mitsui’s fierce competition in the French market.75 The business world is clearly full of ulterior motives. Mitsubishi’s French strategy eventually proved to be far too risky, but the company was strong and had a global approach to business. And it was not only French companies that caught its eye. Although the foreign licences purchased by Mitsubishi Trading up to 1925 were all from France, it was flexible enough to adapt to the French ban by securing British, American and German licences, and developing a special relationship with German companies thereafter.76
2. Mitsubishi’s German connection and the shift towards direct industrial relationsMitsubishi’s German connection dates back not to 1925, when the French became alarmed about it, but to several years earlier. Mitsubishi Trading placed a representative in Berlin soon after WWI, in September 1919.77 Their main duty was to oversee machine imports, particularly for military purposes.78 Initially the transactions were very limited but they soon increased. In June 1924 a branch office (shiten) was set up and imports to Japan tripled within a year.79 Two years later, in 1926, transactions nearly tripled again, hitting 7.5 million yen. Machine imports accounted for almost two-thirds of all transactions (65% in 1923–1926), and within this category the main item was aircraft throughout the 1920s.80 The first big step seems to have been taken in 1922, when the Japanese navy decided to fund a famous German engineer, Adolf Rohrbach, left in dire financial straits after the Allies destroyed all his planes. The Japanese navy seized the opportunity to fund his research, in exchange for access to the results. Rohrbach was a leading specialist in seaplanes and lightweight all-metal frames. Thanks to the Japanese funding he was able to establish his company, Rohrbach Metall-Flugzeugbau GmbH, in August 1922.81 The following month, Mitsubishi Trading signed a contract worth 1.2 million yen for six units of an all-metal airplane and the manufacturing rights to the model.82 At the end of the year, several engineers were sent from Mitsubishi to visit Rohrbach’s factories in Germany and Denmark.83 After they returned to Japan in early 1924, Mitsubishi continued to develop its affiliation with Rohrbach. The navy then requested a proper structure be created to expand manufacturing, while Mitsubishi Trading also feared that Rohrbach might establish links with its rivals (Kawasaki Shipbuilding and Aichi Watch and Electric Manufacturing)84 Rohrbach was invited to Japan the following year, from April to June 1925, in order to strengthen his cooperation with the company. An agreement was concluded on 27 June to create a joint venture in Japan.85 The Mitsubishi-Rohrbach Aircraft Company was founded on 1 August 1928 by Mitsubishi Motors and Mitsubishi Trading with a view to designing, producing and importing “light all-metal airplanes”.86
This entire process was initiated by the navy but was managed on the ground by the Mitsubishi Trading Company office in Berlin.87 Mitsubishi’s German ties reached a remarkable level in 1925, indicating that French anxieties at the time were not unfounded. Once again though, success was not easy to achieve. While Mitsubishi-Rohrbach did manufacture seaplanes, these proved too weak for the heavy Japanese waters. This serious problem, probably caused by structural issues, meant that the seaplanes went out of service after just six months. Mitsubishi consequently had to abandon its “Rohrbach dream” and the joint venture was terminated in October 1926.88 Detailed figures for the amount of money “lost” are lacking, but the total orders paid by Mitsubishi and unfulfilled are known to have reached 2 million yen,89 a huge sum and far larger than the contracts with France.
As we can see then, Mitsubishi’s joint venture with Rohrbach soon reached an impasse, just as its partnership with Dewoitine had. Nevertheless, the company’s German “adventure” made the French government so dislike Mitsubishi that it prevented the company from pursuing any ties with France (see earlier on in this paper). The failure of its German affiliation was a blow to Mitsubishi. Since the company could no longer work with the French, it had to reset its whole vision of international cooperation and the business suffered for a couple of years. In 1926 it barely managed to buy the licence for a low-powered British engine (Mongoose 130 HP) of little interest and imported just one Heinkel airplane – for the Japanese navy – with no further transactions recorded.90 Then in 1927, the planes produced by Mitsubishi and Ishikawajima Aircraft Manufacturing were rejected by the army.91 This is when the crisis really began for Mitsubishi. While it still built some 112 airframes in 1926, this number halved in 1929 (58 units)92 and the profits generated by the aeronautical branch of Mitsubishi Motors plunged: the sum made from April 1926 to March 1928 was almost half that of the previous two years (down from 1.1 million yen to 600,000).93 The cause was a decrease in army orders, leading Mitsubishi to partially shut down its aircraft production plant in April 1929.94
These difficulties led the company to consider dedicating Mitsubishi Motors to aeronautics in order to focus exclusively on new high-tech military equipment and satisfy army requirements.95 This was decided in April 1928 and on 1 May the company was renamed Mitsubishi Aircraft (Mitsubishi kōkūki).96 Mitsubishi Aircraft subsequently sought a fresh start with new partners. It once again turned to Germany and found a new partner in the shape of Junkers, the pioneer in all-metal aircraft. Junkers had hitherto refused to cooperate with Japanese companies on several occasions (such as Mitsui in 1924).97 After long months of negotiations, a deal was concluded on 26 November 1928.98 Apparently Junkers seems to have believed in the nascent civil aviation market in Japan,99 but Mitsubishi’s objective was to develop heavy bombers for the army.100 Mitsubishi Aircraft paid some 600,000 yen for a 12-year contract for 15 airplane models and 3 different engines.101
From this date onwards it was Mitsubishi’s manufacturing arm (Mitsubishi Aircraft) that assumed the lead role in technology transfer, using direct bilateral cooperation, while the company’s trading arm took a back seat. Mitsubishi Trading nonetheless continued to organise the patents needed by Mitsubishi Aircraft, just on a far smaller scale than before. Statistics from Mitsubishi Trading’s Berlin office show that whereas the number of employees rose from 20 in 1928 to 30 in 1935 (compared to a drop from 18 to 12 in Paris), machine imports decreased in relative terms over a 10-year period from 1927 (from 65% in 1923–1926 to 44% in 1927–1931 and 26% in 1932–1938), and even in absolute terms between 1929 and 1932.102 Mitsubishi Trading was developing its German connection, and in February 1928 the branch office even adopted a local corporate form.103 However, the aviation market was no longer its mainstay. On the other hand, Mitsubishi’s strategy to strengthen direct cooperation with foreign manufacturers succeeded in increasing its technical autonomy: its expenditure on licences and patents decreased sharply after 1930, from a peak of 2.5 million yen that year to just 1 million in 1933.104
In this paper we analysed the emergence of Japanese aviation in the 1920s from the French perspective, for whom Japan was an emerging market, and also from the viewpoint of Mitsubishi Trading, for whom aviation itself was a rising sector.
Our analysis of the French experience shows that the private sector either lacked a strategy or did not pay due attention to the Japanese market despite France’s great influence as the world leader in aviation after WWI and despite efficient action from the French administration. The Faure Mission organised by the government in 1918–1919 was a milestone in Japanese aviation history, but the apathy of French companies after its completion prevented them from keeping pace with the burgeoning Japanese sector. Not one single French trading company was active in the nascent Japanese market: French companies depended wholly on political actors at the embassy to develop their business relations on the ground. In this respect too, the work of the French administration was interesting, being particularly proactive and efficient in promoting France’s image in Japan and providing official support to bilateral cooperation.
Nevertheless, early flaws (delivery delays, etc.) in quality control and coordination can be seen on the French side, even during the Faure Mission. This mission demonstrates how divided the French were about the reality and future of the emerging Japanese aviation market, a problem that was highlighted by the Jauneaud controversy. Jauneaud had been in daily contact with his Japanese colleagues throughout 1922 and he understood that the Japanese military did not want to remain a simple “buyer” but wished to become a major player in the aircraft industry as quickly as possible. Jauneaud’s plan was bold and ambitious, and catered to Japanese desires, but his project was contested by Têtu, the aeronautical attaché at the French embassy in Tokyo. Têtu viewed Japanese aviation merely as a buyer of imports and not a technology developer. By choosing to support Têtu over Jauneaud, the French government opted for a purely commercial strategy. This proved to be a poor decision, precisely because Têtu was not a trade agent but an army officer.
Given that the French private sector was not proactive in Japan and lacked the general trading structures of Japanese companies like Mitsubishi, the French trade policy was unlikely to succeed, and did not. Moreover, since the French side refused to engage in any high-level technological cooperation with Japanese structures, the latter were forced to find new partners. In this context, Mitsubishi strove to build direct bilateral relations with foreign manufacturers in the form of joint-venture companies, initially in France with Dewoitine and then in Germany with Rohrbach. Unfortunately, Mitsubishi’s overtures towards a German partner sparked a severe reaction from France, leading the embassy to ban Mitsubishi from any further ties with French business. Ironically, French political decisions drove Mitsubishi inexorably into the arms of Germany. But the main cause of France’s problems may have been the business sector itself and its apathy towards the emerging Japanese market: French companies were absent from Japan and did not have the advantage of a network of general trading companies. They were therefore dependent on the French government and Japanese trading companies like Mitsubishi Trading.
Our study of Mitsubishi Trading’s activities reveals the company’s comprehensive approach as it sought to obtain what it needed to develop the aviation sector in Japan, seeking out knowledge and know-how where it was available. In this process, the existence of structures like Mitsubishi Trading proved to be crucial: the company’s worldwide network of offices meant it could act as a kind of “private embassy,” making it far more flexible and efficient than the French attachés. Mitsubishi Trading thus succeeded in weaving both a French and a German “connection.” However, as we saw, the role of such trading companies had its limits: it was the most suitable structure in terms of getting information and following up on developments abroad, but it ultimately failed in its attempts to establish successful industrial joint ventures. The Dewoitine and Rohrbach failures showed that Mitsubishi Trading was unable to achieve the “industrial turn” that would allow it to achieve technological autonomy. This shift to manufacturing was the job of industrial companies able to develop business-to-business cooperation. This became possible for Mitsubishi thanks to the creation of Mitsubishi Aircraft in 1928. Many other large aeronautical companies were founded in Japan that same year. Examples include the Kawanishi Aircraft Company (Kawanishi Kōkūki, an outgrowth of Kawanishi Machinery Manufacturing, Kawanishi kikai seisakusho) and the Japanese Aviation Company (Nippon Kōkū), a large state-owned civil aviation firm. Also in 1928, Nakajima Aircraft (Nakajima Hikōki) launched an ambitious project to produce its own 1000 HP engine.105 New perspectives were opening up.
The changes that occurred in 1928 were not limited to Japan. Things were on the move in France too. A conference was held in Paris in February that year to discuss the situation in the French aircraft industry and its future, attended by leading figures from the world of business, the press and the military.106 The time had come for France to realise that its technological superiority was threatened by American, British and German innovations. In 1928 the French government adopted a new approach by increasing its research and development investments in the business, boosting innovation through a strategy of massive orders (150 million French francs spent between 1928–1932).107 Public management of aeronautical affairs began to be heavily centralised.108 Once again, the French solution relied on the state. In Germany, the restrictions on its civil aviation were lifted in May 1926 and the German government quickly created a monopoly in the civil transport market. Deutsche Luft Hansa was born and its activities developed steadily across Europe.109 In the US, the airmail service was entirely privatised (and subsidised) in 1926, and numerous companies rushed into the business. The following year, the transatlantic flight made by Charles Lindbergh (in May 1927) sparked a boom in private commercial airplane orders, causing annual aircraft production to triple between 1926 and 1929.110
As a matter of fact, the need for a worldwide network of cooperation to develop aircraft technology was becoming plain to all by the end of the 1920s. However, the chief raison d’être of aviation remained deeply rooted in national defence, leading to a sharp contradiction between domestic politics and business expansion abroad. The “globalisation” of the aviation sector soon appeared impossible. In this new context, international cooperation between firms tended to be exclusively bilateral, limited to business-to-business schemes and to aircraft parts or old models. In short, the Japanese aviation market was no longer a pure “emerging market,” it was part of a “globally integrated market” where every nation was in a position to catch up quickly with others. This level of high-tech specialisation saw trading companies lose their key role in the sector: technicians and engineers took the lead, dealing with other manufacturers directly without the need for commercial companies.
1 The authors would like to express their warmest thanks to the other members of our group for their precious remarks. We would like to thank IFRAE for its financial support. Alexandre Roy would also like to express special thanks to Tokyo University of Foreign Studies for its invitation in 2021 (CAAS Program), which was instrumental in the writing of this paper.
2 See Emmanuel Chadeau, Le rêve et la puissance. L’avion et son siècle (Paris : Fayard, 1997), 80.
3 Keith Hayward, The British Aircraft Industry (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989), 10.
4 See Chadeau, Le rêve et la puissance (…), 101.
5 Emmanuel Chadeau, De Blériot à Dassault. Histoire de l'industrie aéronautique en France (1900-1950) (Paris : Fayard, 1987), 453–455.
6 Ibid., 437.
7 Ibid., 456.
8 Pierre Grosser, L’histoire du monde se fait en Asie (Paris: Odile Jacob, 2017), 89–90.
9 Christian Polak, “Nihon to France no kōkū gijutsu: France kōkū kyōiku-dan (Taishō 7-9 nen)” [Japan and French aviation technology: The French Aeronautical Mission (1918-1920)], in Nichi-Futsu kōkū kankei-shi: fōru taisa no kōkū-kyōikudan rainichi hyakunen [The history of aviation relations between Japan and France: 100th anniversary of the French Aviation Military Mission led by Colonel Faure], eds. Christian Polak and Suzuki Shinji (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 2019), 37–38.
10 See Matthieu Séguéla, Clemenceau ou la tentation du Japon (Paris:CNRS Éditions, 2014).
11 Christian Polak, « La mission militaire française de l’aéronautique au Japon (1919-1921) », Ebisu [En ligne], 51 | 2014 (DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/ebisu.1459). See also Polak “Nihon to France no kōkū gijutsu,” 26–80.
12 Jean-Paul Parent, “Dai-ichiji sekai taisen shūsen to Nihon ni okeru kōkū enjin ryōsan no kaishi” [The end of World War I and the beginnings of aircraft engine production in Japan], in Nichi-Futsu kōkū kankei-shi, eds. Polak and Suzuki, 90, Nihon Kōkū Kyōkai, ed., Nihon kōkū-shi [The history of Japanese aviation] (Tokyo: Japan Aeronautic Association, 1975), 429. See also Nihon Kōkū Gakujutsu-shi Henshū Iinkai, ed., Nihon kōkū gakujutsu-shi [A technical history of Japanese aviation] (Tokyo, 1990), 347, 432.
13 Matsuoka Hisamitsu, Mitsubishi kōkū-enjin-shi [The engines of Mitsubishi: A history] (Tokyo: Miki Press, 2005), 12, 23, Jean-Paul Parent, “Dai-ichiji sekai taisen shūsen to Nihon ni okeru kōkū enjin ryōsan no kaishi,” 87-89, Sakagami Shigeki, “Mitsubishi Nainenki - Mitsubishi Kōkūki no V oyobi W gata gasoline kōkū hatsudō-ki (1/6) » [The Mitsubishi Motor-Aircraft V and W aero diesel engines. 1/6], Journal of Economics, Osaka City University 112, no.4 (March 2012), 21.
14 Sakagami Shigeki, “Mitsubishi Nainenki - Mitsubishi Kōkūki no V oyobi W gata gasoline kōkū hatsudō-ki (2/6)” [The Mitsubishi Motor-Aircraft V and W aero diesel engines. 2/6], Journal of Economics, Osaka City University 113, no. 2 (June 2012), 2.
15 Jürgen Melzer, Wings for the Rising Sun: A Transnational History of Japanese Aviation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2020), 40–66.
16 Ibid., 71.
17 Rémy Porte, « L’échec de la Mission militaire française d’Aéronautique au Japon 1918-1920 », Revue historique des armées 236 (2004), 88-96.
18 See in particular his final report. Service historique de la Défense, à Vincennes [SHD] 7 N 1707. Colonel Faure à Ministre de la Guerre (EM 2e bureau), 10 mai 1919.
19 This appears in particular in his personal file. SHD 7 N 1707. « Notes obtenues par le Colonel Faure. Année 1919 », État-major à Direction de l’aéronautique, 29 décembre 1920.
20 Polak, “Nihon to France no kōkū gijutsu,” 75–76.
21 Archives du Ministère des Affaires étrangères, à La Courneuve [dorénavant AMAE] 88 — Aviation (1922-26) CPC - E - Asie — JAPON — 1918-40 — 39CPCOM. Paul Claudel (Chargé d’affaires, Tokyo) à Raymond Poincaré (Président du Conseil et Ministre des Affaires étrangères, Paris), 1er septembre 1922.
22 AMAE 88. Claudel à Poincaré, 7 septembre 1922.
23 AMAE 88. Commandant Têtu (Attaché aéronautique, Tokyo) à Laurent Eynac (Sous-secrétaire d’État de l’Aéronautique, Paris), 8 novembre 1923.
24 AMAE 88. Eynac à Poincaré, 29 juin 1923.
25 Ibid.
26 AMAE-LC 88 — AVIATION (1922-26). Poincaré à Eynac, 11 juillet 1923.
27 AMAE-LC 88. Têtu à Eynac, 8 novembre 1923.
28 AMAE-LC 88. Capitaine Baron (Attaché militaire, Tokyo) à Ministre de la Guerre (Paris), 31 janvier 1924.
29 AMAE-LC 88. Têtu, « Note au sujet du Commandant Jauneaud », 28 mars 1924.
30 AMAE-LC 88. Claudel à Poincaré, 8 avril 1924.
31 Ibid. : « (…) nous avons comme organisateurs et comme fournisseurs de l’aviation japonais une excellente situation. Mais de là à espérer que les Japonais vont se remettre complètement entre nos mains, nous faire leurs confidences et leurs fournisseurs exclusifs, prendre à leur compte les essais coûteux que nous trouvions commode de leur faire faire, il y a très loin. Nous obtiendrons des résultats auprès de ces Asiatiques sans imagination, non par la séduction de vastes projets plus ou moins chimériques, mais par une action modeste et persévérante et par la conviction constante que nous saurons maintenir dans leur esprit qu’ils ont intérêt à recourir à nos inventions et à notre industrie plutôt qu’à celles du voisin. »
32 Suzuki Jun, “Taishō-ki no hikōnetsu” [Airplane fever in the Taishō era], in Kōkū no nijū seiki [The twentieth century of aviation], ed. Takada Kaori (Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Hyouronsha, 2020), 55.
33 AMAE-LC 88. Ctre-Amiral Thomine (chef du cabinet militaire) à Poincaré, 20 novembre 1923 ; Tétu à Claudel, 6 mars 1926.
34 AMAE-LC 88. Têtu à Eynac, 15 mai 1925. See also the report entitled « a/s propagande aéronautique allemande au Japon » (Têtu à Eynac, 20 mai 1925).
35 AMAE-LC 88. Gentil (Chargé d’affaires, Tokyo) à Eynac, télégramme, 2 octobre 1925.
36 AMAE-LC 88. Gentil à Eynac, télégramme, 7 décembre 1925.
37 AMAE-LC 88. Henry Potez (Levallois-Perret) à Eynac, 21 décembre 1925.
38 AMAE-LC 88. Aristide Briand (Président du Conseil) à Eynac, 22 décembre 1925.
39 AMAE-LC 88. Gentil à Eynac, télégramme, 7 décembre 1925.
40 « Mitsui demande secret même vis-à-vis officiels japonais .» AMAE-LC 88. Gentil à Eynac, télégramme, 6 janvier 1926.
41 Kasuga Yutaka, “1930 nendai ni okeru Mitsui Bussan Kaisha no tenkai katei (chū)” [The development of Mitsui Bussan during the 1930s (2/3)], The journal of Mitsui Research Institute for Social and Economic History 17 (1983), 97.
42 AMAE 88. Gentil (Tokyo) à Eynac (Paris), 7 décembre 1925.
43 AMAE 88. Têtu (Tokyo) à Eynac (Paris), 2 octobre 1925.
44 AMAE 88. Têtu (Tokyo) à Claudel (Tokyo), 6 mars 1926.
45 See Chadeau, Le rêve et la puissance, 154.
46 Bōeichō bōei kenshūjo senshi-shitsu, ed., Kaigun kōkū gaishi [General history of naval aviation] (Tokyo: Asagumo Shinbunsha, 1976), fuhyō daisan.
47 Ibid., fuhyō daiichi.
48 Ibid., fuhyō daisan.
49 Ibid., fuhyō daiichi.
50 AMAE 88. Eynac à Poincaré, 29 juin 1923.
51 Mitsubishi Internal Combustion Motors Manufacturing (Mitsubishi Nainenki Seizō) was founded on 15 May 1920 and renamed Mitsubishi Internal Combustion Motors (Mitsubishi Nainenki) on 1 October 1921. It became the Mitsubishi Aircraft Company (Mitsubishi Kōkūki) on 1 May 1928. Mitsubishi Shashikankōkai, ed., Mitsubishi shashi [The history of Mitsubishi group], vol. 31 (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1986), 5683; Ibid., vol. 35, 136.
52 Ibid., vol. 30, 4989.
53 Mitsubishi Jūkōgyō, ed., Mitsubishi Jūkōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha-shi [The history of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries] (Tokyo, 1956), 618.
54 Ibid., 397.
55 Fujita Nobuhisa, “Mitsubishi ni okeru kōkūki jigyō e no sengyō to keiei jittai: Mitsubishi Kōkūki Kabushiki Kaisha jidai o chūshin ni” [Foundation of a company specialized in aircraft production by Mitsubishi and its business: With a focus on Mitsubishi Aircraft Co. Ltd.], Mitsubishi Archives review 15 (2014), 2–3.
56 Mitsubishi Jūkōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha-shi, 653.
57 Ibid., 649.
58 Matsuoka, Mitsubishi kōkū-enjin-shi, 13–14.
59 Tanaka Kanzō, Ritsugyō bōeki-roku [Fostering trade to boost business. A record] (Tokyo: Mitsubishi Shōji, 1958), 240.
60 Matsuoka, Mitsubishi kōkū-enjin-shi, 23, Jean-Paul Parent, “Dai-ichiji sekai taisen shūsen to Nihon ni okeru kōkū enjin ryōsan no kaishi,” 87–89, Sakagami, “Mitsubishi Nainenki… (1/6),” 21.
61 Sakagami, “Mitsubishi Nainenki… (2/6),” 2.
62 Mitsubishi Archives: MC-04432-002. Kuga Teisaburō and Hattori Ichirō, “France Mitsubishi Kabushiki Kaisha jimu hikitsugi-gaki,” 31 May 1927.
63 Tanaka, Ritsugyō bōeki-roku, 239.
64 Kasai Masanao, “1920 nendai ni okeru kōkūki sangyō no kenkyū kaihatsu to seisan shisutemu – Mitsubishi kōkūki bumon no jirei o chūshin-ni” [R&D and production systems in the aeronautical industry during the 1930s: The case of Mitsubishi Aircraft], Journal of Nagoya Gakuin University: Social Sciences 37, no. 1 (2000), 95. See also Mitsubishi Jūkōgyō, Mitsubishi Jūkōgyō Kaisha-shi, 397-399.
65 Tanaka, Ritsugyō bōeki-roku, 239 and Mitsubishi Jūkōgyō, Mitsubishi Jūkōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha-shi, 621-623.
66 Matsuoka, Mitsubishi kōkū-enjin-shi, 17-18.
67 Masata Yoshihisa, Nakajima hikōki to gakuto dōin [Nakajima Aircraft and the mobilization of university students] (Maebashi: Miyama Bunko, 2002), 40.
68 Satō Tatsuo, Nakajima hikōki no gijutsu to keiei [Nakajima Aircraft technology and management] (Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Hyouronsha, 2016), 260.
69 Ōshima Hisayuki and Alexandre Roy, “Mitsubishi ni okeru kōkūki gijutsu dōnyū to Mitsubishi Shōji” [Adoption of the aircraft technology by Mitsubishi and the role of Mitsubishi Corporation], Mitsubishi Archives review 21 (2020), 95–96 and Mitsubishi Shōji, ed., Mitsubishi Shōji shashi: Shiryō-hen [The history of Mitsubishi Trading: Documents] (Tokyo: Mitsubishi Shōji, 1987), 191.
70 Tanaka Kanzō, Ritsugyō bōeki-roku, 245.
71 Mitsubishi Archives: MC-04432-002. Kuga Teisaburō, “Deboachin Kaisha no ken,” no date, inclosed in Kuga Teisaburō and Hattori Ichirō, “France Mitsubishi Kabushiki Kaisha jimu hikitsugi-gaki,” 31 May 1927. See Ōshima and Roy, “Mitsubishi ni okeru kōkūki gijutsu dōnyū to Mitsubishi Shōji,” 96.
72 Tanaka, Ritsugyō bōeki-roku, 246.
73 Emmanuel Chadeau, « Stratégies d'entreprises et innovations internationales : les motoristes français d'aviation (1918-1940) », Histoire, économie et société 6-2 (1987), 277.
74 AMAE 88. Paul Claudel (Tokyo) à MAE (Paris), 8 avril 1924.
75 Mitsubishi Archives: MC-04432-002. Kuga Teisaburō and Hattori Ichirō, “France Mitsubishi Kabushiki Kaisha jimu hikitsugi-gaki,” 31 May 1927.
76 See Kasai, “1920 nendai ni okeru kōkūki sangyō”, 93.
77 Mitsubishi Shōji, Mitsubishi Shōji shashi: Shiryō-hen, 64.
78 Okabe Keishi, “Ryōtaisen kanki Doitsu Mitsubishi Shōji no tenkai to kikai torihiki” [The development of Mitsubishi Shoji Kaisha, G.m.b.H. and the trading of machinery in the interwar period], The Journal of Business Studies Ryukoku University 58 (January 2019), 59–60.
79 Ibid., 64.
80 Ibid.
81 Rohrbach asserted this in his own records: “Only by means of this [Japanese navy] contract was I able to establish the Rohrbach-Metall-Flugzeug GmbH in Berlin in August 1922 and at the same time in Copenhagen the Rohrbach Metal Aeroplan Co. Aktieselskab.” See Mezler, Wings for the Rising Sun, 173-174.
82 Tanaka, Ritsugyō bōeki-roku, 244. Four units to be produced in Denmark and two in Japan, according to Mezler, Wings for the Rising Sun, 173-74.
83 Ibid., 174.
84 This is clearly apparent in the first report of the Mitsubishi-Rohrbach Aircraft (Mitsubishi Archives: MHI-00220).
85 Tanaka, Ritsugyō bōeki-roku, 244; and Mitsubishi shashi, vol. 34, 6898.
86 “Mitsubishi Nainenki Kabushiki Kaisha tsūtatsu” (Mitsubishi shashi, vol. 34, 7009).
87 Tanaka, Ritsugyō bōeki-roku, 244.
88 See Ōshima and Roy, “Mitsubishi ni okeru kōkūki gijutsu dōnyū to Mitsubishi Shōji”, 99. Melzer writes that the company was liquidated in May 1926 (Melzer, Wings for the Rising Sun, 179).
89 Tanaka, Ritsugyō bōeki-roku, 244.
90 Ibid., 241.
91 Mizusawa Hikari, Gun’yōki no tanjō [The birth of military aircraft] (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 2017), 27-28.
92 See the figures shown in Ōishi Naoki, “Mitsubishi ni okeru kōkūki jigyō to Mitsubishi Jūkōgyō no setsuritsu” [Aircraft manufacturing business in Mitsubishi Zaibatsu and foundation of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries], Mitsubishi Archives review 11 (2010), 110, Table 5.
93 Figures are available in Ōishi, “Mitsubishi ni okeru kōkūki jigyō to Mitsubishi Jūkōgyō no setsuritsu,” 106, 109.
94 “Nainenki Kaisha shamei henkō,” Shahō 540 gō (Mitsubishi shashi, vol. 35, 249).
95 Mitsubishi Jūkōgyō, ed., Mitsubishi Jūkōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha-shi, 62.
96 “Nainenki Kaisha shamei henkō,” Shahō 540 gō (Mitsubishi shashi, vol. 35, 136).
97 Nagamine Michiteru, “Yunkāsu no sekai senryaku to Nihon 1919–1939” [Japan and the global strategy of Junkers, 1919–1939], Yokohama shiritsu daigaku ronsō 68, no. 2 (2017), 32–40.
98 Ibid., 67–68.
99 Ibid., 52–53.
100 Ibid., 56.
101 Melzer, Wings for the Rising Sun, 119.
102 Okabe, “Ryōtaisen kanki Doitsu Mitsubishi Shōji no tenkai to kikai torihiki,” 60, 64.
103 Mitsubishi Shōji, Mitsubishi Shōji Shashi, Shiryō-hen, 64.
104 See Ōshima and Roy, “Mitsubishi ni okeru kōkūki gijutsu dōnyū to Mitsubishi Shōji,” 102.
105 See Katsuragi Yōji, Rekishi no naka no Nakajima Hikōki [Nakajima Aircraft in history] (Tokyo: Grand Prix Book Publishing, 2017), 121.
106 Général Albert Niessel, L'aviation, problème national, problème mondial (Paris: Comité national d'études sociales et politiques, 1928).
107 Chadeau, “Stratégies d’entreprises et innovation internationale,” 267.
108 Chadeau, Le rêve et la puissance, 171 ; Sacha Markovics, “Le rôle de l'Etat dans la naissance de l'aviation commerciale française (1918–1933)”, Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire 78, fasc. 3–4 (2000), 981–982, 988.
109 See Georges Tresca, L'état présent de l'aviation commerciale à l'étranger et en France (Lyon: Imprimerie L. Bonnaviat, 1928).
110 William F. Trimble, “The Naval Aircraft Factory: The American Aviation Industry, and Government Competition, 1919–1928”, Business history Review 60, no. 2 (Summer, 1986), 197.
