The caption of this propaganda news photo reads: "Navy Eagles (UMIWASI) are growing vegetables at the Solomons, just in front of the enemy. A bomber is resting nearby." Certainly nothing much to see from this highly retouched photo except that the planes are both G4Ms. Would make an excellent diorama though...

A close up of the plane landing just beside the parked one. The three dark horizontal lines of the sensor on the tail might be an attempt to conseal two white lines and a number underneath them indicating that this plane might belong to the Kisarazu Kokutai and the place could be Kavieng. But of course this is just speculation...

And while the sensor went to great lengths to conseal whatever possible in the above photo, in this perfectly clear propaganda photo, we can see in full detail the dorsal machine gun position of a G4M. According to the caption: "Take a look at this Navy Eagle on his life and death mission against the enemy, in the sky over the Solomons. It's from him we gather our strength to victory." Don't know how effective was the message 50 years ago...

Bellow: another retouched propaganda photo, released in June 1943. The caption reads: "The scale and strategy of the air battles in the South Pacific, off the Lunga area, have changed dramatically. In this photo we can see Navy Eagles shooting at the following enemy a/c". Shooting they do but most probably the tail gunner of the G4M1 is test firing his 20mm cannon. Unfortunately, as usual, we can't see the tail markings of these a/c but a close up (see further below) shows that some planes have what looks like an horizontal white stripe. If that's the case, then these planes belong to the Misawa Kokutai based at Rabaul.