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Originally Posted by vanjast
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Looks like the men that flew them had similar derisive names.
They weren't too popular with their crews. The G4M Betty was also the bomber Admiral Yamamoto would perish in, being intercepted mid-air in 1943 during an inspection tour of the Northern Solomons. Not a lucky plane.
Interesting to note that Wake Island became something of a backwater after the December 1941 battle. Although Japan fortified the island heavily it was cut off from any further resupply by 1944 as Japan's merchant marine shrank. In the garrison 600 Japanese soldiers died from American carrier air attacks, and 1,300 from starvation. Those troops left who surrendered after the war's end had been reduced to eating birds and rats.