Aviators of special interest at the airfield over the years

Japanese. Tokyo-Croydon

(below) Croydon July 1930. Azuma in his 'City of Tokio' leaving Croydon-Tokio', after arriving from Paris.

(below) Croydon 1937

Kamikaze (Kamikaze-go) was a Mitsubishi Ki-15 Karigane aircraft, (registration J-BAAI) sponsored by the newspaper Asahi Shimbun. It became famous on the 9th of April 1937, as the first Japanese-built aircraft to fly from Japan to Europe. The flight from Tokyo to London took 51 hours, 17 minutes and 23 seconds and was piloted by Masaaki Iinuma (1912–1941), with Kenji Tsukagoshi (1900–1943) serving as navigator.