Japanese Dinah pilot's survival/identification flag, Kitava Island : Flying Officer A W Moore, 79 Squadron RAAF

Japanese aircrew survival/identifiction flag for use in the event of an aircraft being forced down. Fine silk national flag (red disc on a white ground) is mounted on a telescopic bamboo pole. The edges of the flag are weighted with kapok so that it will either fly in air or float on water.

Related to the service of Arthur Warren ‘Arch’ Moore, born St Kilda, Victoria on 21 December 1918. Moore enlisted with the RAAF on 28 March 1941 at Melbourne. Flying Officer Moore served as a pilot with 79 Squadron, flying Supermarine Spitfires. 79 Squadron was formed at Laverton, Victoria, on 26 April 1943. The squadron received its first Spitfire VC aircraft a month later, when it was ordered to deploy to Goodenough Island, off New Guinea’s east coast. The squadron was operational by 26 June. The Spitfires redeployed to Kiriwina Island on 18 August.

On 28 November 1943, while based at Vivigani on Goodenough Island, Moore intercepted an enemy aircraft. He wrote of this encounter in 1990:
'I was flying at 11,000 feet – carrying out a test flight – when I heard on the R/T that the Squadron’s recce chasers had been scrambled and were airborne. They were told that a bogey was approaching Z Sector at Angels 28.
I attempted to advise control of my position, but my radio would not transmit. I decided to attempt an interception myself and had climbed to 30,000 feet when I saw an aircraft at 10 o’clock level and heading in the opposite direction.
I did a long slow turn and came in about four hundred yards behind the aircraft. I overtook it quite easily, identified it as twin engined, Japanese, and almost certainly a Dinah. I opened fire at about 100 yards, saw pieces fall from the starboard engine and aileron; the aircraft stalled, spun, caught fire at about 20,000 feet and dived into the sea off Kitava Island.'

His victim - a twin-engined 'Dinah' a very high performance and sleek aircraft properly known as a Mitsubshi Ki-46 Type 100 Reconnaissance aircraft – crashed into the sea about 8 kilometres south of Kitava Island. The crew, Lieutenants Kenichi Kazama and Sasaburo Takeshita, of the 10th Hiko Sentai, Japanese Army Air Force, based at Wewak in New Guinea, were both killed. This flag was collected from the crash site; the inclusion of kapok pockets ensured that it floated long enough to be recovered. Later promoted to Flight Lieutenant, Arch Moore was discharged from the RAAF on 28 September 1945.