What color were the crew O2 cylinders for the B5N and D3As. I’ve seen white and silver mentioned. Also , the rear cockpit bulkhead on both have racks with what look sorta like small O2 cylinders mounted horizontally, with a clip holding them in the rack . I’m thinking they might be the smoke markers that go with the wind drift stripes on the tail. What color would they be? (The cylinders, not the smoke.)
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Per Robert C. Mikesk’s Japanese Aircraft Interiors 1940-1945, Japanese O2 bottles were gloss black with red kanja lettering. Bottle necks were brass.
Some aircraft had Co2 fire suppression systems and those slightly smaller bottles were a “bamboo” green. Another type of bottle with compressed air for charging guns was brown.
Where would those CO2 cylinders be stored? I’d think theyd be more towards the engine area. Not at the rear of the crew compartment. Same for the gun charging bottles (B5Ns generally only had the manual 7.7mm Type 92. A few had a pair of wing (?) mounted 7.7s for strafing , but it sounds like they were an oddity. And might be an N1 thing.)
My apologies, I should have made clear that I do not know if Val or Kate had the CO2 system. I mentioned those for potential building of another Japanese airplane that has multiple bottles visible. The photo that I was looking at is actually inside an A6M5.
As for placement, in the Zero, three oxygen bottles, two CO2 bottles, and the brown compressed air for charging the wind guns were laid out in the fuselage just behind the pilot seat bulkhead.
