In the late 1930s, Seversky aircraft exported twenty two-seat 2PA-B3 to Japan for operational service by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service as the A8V1 Type STwo Seat Fighter. The history of this type in Japanese service is obscure and not covered in any detail in the main English-language references for Japanese aircraft. The aircraft were supposedly imported as a result of Japanese anxiety over escalating losses for their unescorted strategic bombing raids with Type 96 G3M bombers deep into China from bases in Formosa which had begun in 1937. The purchase contract for the Seversky 2PA-B3, construction numbers 122 through 141 had been negotiated secretly but was to cause controversy in the US and subsequent difficulties in Seversky's relationship with the US government and military. Sources differ on exactly when the aircraft were delivered, but it must have been at least prior to October 1938.
Design and development
The origins of the Seversky P-35 single-seat fighter trace back to the Seversky SEV-3amphibian, which was developed into the Seversky BT-8 basic trainer. Seversky's chief designer, Alexander Kartveli, also proposed a two-seat fighter derivative, the SEV-2XP. This was powered by a Wright R-1670radial engine. It had fixed landing gear in aerodynamic spats and was armed with one and one. forward-firing machine guns plus an additional machine gun for rear defence. When the USAAC announced a competition for a new single-seat fighter in 1935, Seversky sent the SEV-2XP, confident it would win despite being a two-seater. However, the aircraft was damaged on 18 June 1935 during its transit to the fly-offs at Wright Field. The Air Corps delayed the fly-off until March 1936, which allowed Seversky time to rework the fighter into the single-seat SEV-1XP with retractable landing gear and re-engined with the Wright R-1820 radial. In what proved to be an unpopular move for Seversky, twenty 2PA-B3s were sold to the Japanese Navy, which briefly employed them in the Second Sino-Japanese War as Navy Type S Two-Seat Fighter or A8V-1. Two demonstrators ended up in the USSR; although a manufacturing licence was also bought, the Soviets undertook no production. Sweden ordered 52 2PAs, but only two were delivered before the remaining 50 were impounded in 1940 and put into service with the USAAF as the AT-12 Guardsman advanced trainer. On 18 June 1940, United States declared an embargo against exporting weapons to any nation other than the United Kingdom.
Operational history
The Seversky two-seat fighters were to be used as long-range escort aircraft with forward-firing guns and the observer equipped with a hand-held machine gun. However, when they arrived and were tested, the Japanese were disappointed with their performance, climb rate and agility in the air. There does not seem to be any record of them being used in the long-range bomber escort role for which they were intended, but instead they were relegated to a reconnaissance role over central China with the 12thKōkūtai, operating from bases around Nanking. Possibly the successful development of the Zero-sen as a long-range fighter was also a factor in their demise. Unfortunately, little has been documented about their operational use over China. Expecting to encounter these aircraft still in service, they were given the Allied reporting name "Dick", but by that time they had long been withdrawn from service. Two of the aircraft were passed on to the Asahi Shimbun Newspaper company to become Shiokaze-go and Umikaze-go, and a third was given to the Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun Newspaper company. Their planes used for interview and air transportation of manuscripts and photographs. J-BAAN was registered in October 1938 and J-BAAQ in March 1941, but a registration for the Tokyo Nichinichi Newspaper aircraft cannot be confirmed.
Variants
;2PA ;A8V1 "Dick" :Japanese designation for 2PA-B3. ; B 6 :Swedish designation of the 2PA. ; AT-12 Guardsman :Two-seat advanced trainer for the USAAF.
