2528 - Sake cup depicting a Betty bomber. Made of red-lacquered wood. Numerous kanji characters around the rim of the cup. Diameter: 9 cm. Height: 3 cm. The Mitsubishi G4M, nicknamed “Betty” by the Allies, was the most famous and most widely produced land-based twin-engine bomber of the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service during World War II, with 2,446 units built. The Bettys earned a fearsome reputation early in the war by sinking, alongside G3Ms, the Royal Navy’s flagship vessels off the coast of Malaysia—the battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the cruiser HMS Repulse. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto—the architect of the attack on Pearl Harbor—was traveling aboard a Mitsubishi G4M Betty when he was intercepted and shot down by American P-38 Lightnings, which had been alerted by the decoding of Japanese communications. At the very end of the war, two demilitarized aircraft, painted entirely white with green crosses—designated Bataan 1 and Bataan 2—were used to transport the Japanese delegation tasked with negotiating the surrender with the Allies. Sake cup depicting a Betty bomber. Red-lacquered wood with numerous kanji characters around the rim. Diameter 9 cm, height 3 cm. The Mitsubishi G4M, nicknamed “Betty” by the Allies, was the most famous and most numerous land-based twin-engine bomber of the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service during World War II, with 2,446 built. Along with the G3M bombers, the Betty earned a formidable reputation early in the war by sinking the Royal Navy battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser HMS Repulse off the coast of Malaya. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the architect of the Pearl Harbor attack, was traveling aboard a Mitsubishi G4M Betty when American P-38 Lightning fighters intercepted and shot it down after Japanese communications were decoded. At the end of the war, two demilitarized aircraft painted entirely white with green crosses—designated Bataan 1 and Bataan 2—carried the Japanese delegation sent to negotiate surrender with the Allies.