Was the Bristol Beaufighter referred to by Japanese soldiers as the "whispering death"?

A common claim is that the World War Two era aeroplane the Bristol Beaufighter was referred to as the "whispering death" by Japanese combatants during the war. This claim seems to stem from fake Allied propaganda of the war period. First of all, Japanese combatants would be speaking Japanese, so they would not be saying "whispering death", so of course the claim consists of a claim that the Japanese were using a Japanese equivalent of this terminology.

The question then becomes what would the Japanese equivalent of "whispering death" even be? Whispering in Japanese is ささやく (sasayaku), but this word usually refers to the human act of talking quietly, rather than a noise emitted by an aeroplane. "Death" is 死 (shi), and the Western figure the grim reaper is called 死神 (shinigami). The idea that Japanese combatants were referring to an enemy aeroplane as "sasayaku shinigami" seems to be a patently ridiculous propaganda claim, but it's repeated endlessly around the internet under youtube videos on this aeroplane, which incidentally was used by the Australian air force during the war against the Japanese.

Since the claim is so nonsensical, but gets repeated so often, I'll make the following offer: I will pay the sum of one thousand pounds sterling to anyone who can come up with convincing evidence that the Bristol Beaufighter was ever referred to as "Whispering Death" by any Japanese person during the Second World War. Please contact me by the email below to claim the prize.


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