The career of Kaga, which started on the drawing boards of the design bureau as a battleship had capacity for swift development. The first studies on the preliminary design began in 1917 and during the calendar year several variants were developed. Individual solutions envisaged in the design were duly analyzed, and pieces of information systematically arriving from Europe, where the world war was raging, proved helpful in their verification. They had substantial contribution in development of the final design, which was completed in mid 1918 and its author was the designer Captain Yozuru Hiraga. Kaga was laid down on 19 July 1920 in the Kawasaki shipyard in Kobe and the complete hull was launched on 17 November 1921 and the construction was canceled a month later! The future of the ship was definitely endangered by the Washington Naval Treaty, which notabene stipulated the conversion of Kaga to a target ship. Another chance emerged after the earthquake which affected the Kanto region on 1 September 1923 and heavily damaged the hull of the battlecruiser Amagi. The repair was deemed pointless so it was decided to convert the battleship Kaga, work on which was on similar stage of advance, to a carrier in lieu of the destroyed Amagi. Completed as a carrier she participated in all major Japanese combat operations conducted during 1930 - 1942. Heavily damaged during the Battle of Midway it was sunk by the destroyer Hagikaze.
Japanese aircraft carrier "Kaga". She was initially being built as a battleship, but as a result of a coincidence she became one of the first large carriers in history. She was a part of Japanese Kidō Butai, a group of carriers that decided about the power of the Imperial Japanese Navy during the first half-year of the war in Pacific. After a daring attack on Pearl Harbor followed by a series of further victories there was a reversal during the battle of Midway, when "Kaga" and three accompanying carriers were destroyed which ultimately buried Japan's chances for winning the war.
This vessel, which was to become the most famous Japanese aircraft carrier and the symbol of the might of the Imperial Japanese Navy aviation, was initially built as a battlecruiser. Only as the result of the resolutions of the Washington Naval Treaty the Akagi ("Red Castle", the name of a Japanese mountain) was completed as an aircraft carrier. During the first six months of the war in the Pacific she was the flagship of the carrier strike group, marching from one victory to another. The reversal took place during the battle of Midway, when a hit by a single bomb in a fatal moment sealed her fate.
On 4 May 1940 the third Yamato-class battleship was laid down at the Navy Shipyard in Yokosuka. It was to be named Shinano, after a province on Honshu Island, in Nagato prefecture. That was also the name of the longest river in Japan (320 km). Admiral Yamamoto was born at its banks. Due to material supply difficulties, in December 1940 the construction was suspended. In 1942, after the Japanese defeat at Midway (four aircraft carriers were lost) it was decided to continue the construction of the ship as an aircraft carrier, in order to partially make up for losses suffered in this class of ships. The rebuilding scheme was designed by Vice Admirals Keji Fukuda and Seichi Izamur.
Hailed as "the single most effective pilot at Midway" (World War II magazine), Dusty Kleiss struck and sank three Japanese warships at the Battle of Midway, including two aircraft carriers, helping turn the tide of the Second World War. This is his extraordinary memoir. NATIONAL BESTSELLER • "AN INSTANT CLASSIC" —Dallas Morning News On the morning of June 4, 1942, high above the tiny Pacific atoll of Midway, Lt. (j.g.) "Dusty" Kleiss burst out of the clouds and piloted his SBD Dauntless into a near-vertical dive aimed at the heart of Japan’s Imperial Navy, which six months earlier had ruthlessly struck Pearl Harbor. The greatest naval battle in history raged around him, its outcome hanging in the balance as the U.S. desperately searched for its first major victory of the Second World War. Then, in a matter of seconds, Dusty Kleiss’s daring 20,000-foot dive helped forever alter the war’s trajectory. Plummeting through the air at 240 knots amid blistering anti-aircraft fire, the twenty-six-year-old pilot from USS Enterprise’s elite Scouting Squadron Six fixed on an invaluable target—the aircraft carrier Kaga, one of Japan’s most important capital ships. He released three bombs at the last possible instant, then desperately pulled out of his gut-wrenching 9-g dive. As his plane leveled out just above the roiling Pacific Ocean, Dusty’s perfectly placed bombs struck the carrier’s deck, and Kaga erupted into an inferno from which it would never recover. Arriving safely back at Enterprise, Dusty was met with heartbreaking news: his best friend was missing and presumed dead along with two dozen of their fellow naval aviators. Unbowed, Dusty returned to the air that same afternoon and, remarkably, would fatally strike another enemy carrier, Hiryu. Two days later, his deadeye aim contributed to the destruction of a third Japanese warship, the cruiser Mikuma, thereby making Dusty the only pilot from either side to land hits on three different ships, all of which sank—losses that crippled the once-fearsome Japanese fleet. By battle’s end, the humble young sailor from Kansas had earned his place in history—and yet he stayed silent for decades, living quietly with his children and his wife, Jean, whom he married less than a month after Midway. Now his extraordinary and long-awaited memoir, Never Call Me a Hero, tells the Navy Cross recipient’s full story for the first time, offering an unprecedentedly intimate look at the "the decisive contest for control of the Pacific in World War II" (New York Times)—and one man’s essential role in helping secure its outcome. Dusty worked on this book for years with naval historians Timothy and Laura Orr, aiming to publish Never Call Me a Hero for Midway’s seventy-fifth anniversary in June 2017. Sadly, as the book neared completion in 2016, Dusty Kleiss passed away at age 100, one of the last surviving dive-bomber pilots to have fought at Midway. And yet the publication of Never Call Me a Hero is a cause for celebration: these pages are Dusty’s remarkable legacy, providing a riveting eyewitness account of the Battle of Midway, and an inspiring testimony to the brave men who fought, died, and shaped history during those four extraordinary days in June, seventy-five years ago.
An highly illustrated examination of the key ships, tactics and operations of the Imperial Japanese Navy in the War in the Pacific in World War II. The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) was the third most powerful navy in the world at the start of World War II, and came to dominate the Pacific in the early months of the war. This was a remarkable turnaround for a navy that only began to modernize in 1868, although defeats inflicted on the Russians and Chinese in successive wars at the turn of the century gave a sense of the threat the IJN was to pose. Bringing together for the first time material previously published in Osprey series books, and with the addition of new writing making use of the most recent research, this book details the Japanese ships which fought in the Pacific and examines the principles on which they were designed, how they were armed, when and where they were deployed and how effective they were in battle. The Imperial Japanese Navy in the Pacific War provides a history of the IJN's deployment and engagements, analysis of the evolution of strategy and tactics, and finally addresses the question of whether it truly was a modern navy, fully prepared for the rigors of combat in the Pacific. Illustrated throughout with photographs and detailed colour artworks, this is a valuable reference source for Pacific War enthusiasts and historians alike.
Soryu meaning "Blue (or Green) Dragon") was an aircraft carrier built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during the mid-1930s. A sister ship, Hiryū, was intended to follow Sōryū, but Hiryū 's design was heavily modified and she is often considered to be a separate class. Their aircraft supported the Japanese invasion of French Indochina in mid-1940. During the first month of the Pacific War, they took part in the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Wake Island and then supported the conquest of the Dutch East Indies in January 1942. The following month, their aircraft bombed Darwin, Australia, and continued to assist in the Dutch East Indies campaign. In April, Hiryū's aircraft helped sink two British heavy cruisers and several merchant ships during the Indian Ocean raid. Hiryū was the second aircraft carrier included in "The Second Naval Armaments Supplement Program" of 1934. Originally both carriers were supposed to be sister vessels, but the number of design modifications introduced during the construction of Sōryū resulted in many differences between the two. According to the original plans Hiryū was to be completed a year after Sōryū, but her construction (similarly to her predecessor) suffered delays caused by two key factors. The first one was the implementation of the lessons learned during the reconstruction of Kaga, which was going on simultaneously with Hiryū's construction. Then there was new data available from the early service days of Sōryū, which exposed some of the design's drawbacks and weaknesses. The number of issues popping up "along the way" was further increased by the Fourth Fleet Incident and by Japan's withdrawal from the previously signed naval treaties. Considering all those issues, it is not hard to imagine the inevitable impact they had on Hiryū's original design and construction schedule. The greatest source of delays was undoubtedly the aftermath of the Fourth Fleet Incident, which forced the Navy Aviation Bureau to introduce changes in the design of the second carrier. After the new requirements had been implemented, Hiryū's final design (known as the "Basic Project G-10") finally emerged.
Many consider the Battle of Midway to have turned the tide of the Pacific War. It is without question one of the most famous battles in history. Now, for the first time since Gordon W. Prange s bestselling "Miracle at Midway," Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully offer a new interpretation of this great naval engagement. Unlike previous accounts, "Shattered Sword" makes extensive use of Japanese primary sources. It also corrects the many errors of Mitsuo Fuchida s "Midway: The Battle That Doomed Japan," an uncritical reliance upon which has tainted every previous Western account. It thus forces a major, potentially controversial reevaluation of the great battle. The authors examine the battle in detail and effortlessly place it within the context of the Imperial Navy s doctrine and technology. With a foreword by leading WWII naval historian John Lundstrom, "Shattered Sword" will become an indispensable part of any military buff s library. Winner of the 2005 John Lyman Book Award for the "Best Book in U.S. Naval History" and cited by "Proceedings" as one of its "Notable Naval Books" for 2005."
The Washington Treaty of 1922, designed to head off a potentially dangerous arms race between the major naval powers, agreed to legally binding limits on the numbers and sizes of the principal warship types. In doing so, it introduced a new constraint into naval architecture and sponsored many ingenious attempts to maximise the power of ships built within those restrictions. It effectively banned the construction of new battleships for a decade, but threw greater emphasis on large cruisers.rn This much is broadly understood by anyone with an interest in warships, but both the wider context of the treaty and the detail ramifications of its provisions are little understood. The approach of this book is novel in combining coverage of the political and strategic background of the treaty and the subsequent London Treaty of 1930 with analysis of exactly how the navies of Britain, the USA, Japan, France and Italy responded, in terms of the types of warships they built and the precise characteristics of those designs. This was not just a matter of capital ships and cruisers, but also influenced the development of super-destroyers and large submarines.rn Now for the first time warship enthusiasts and historians can understand fully the rationale behind much of inter-war naval procurement. The Washington Treaty was a watershed, and this book provides an important insight into its full significance.
The Imperial Japanese Navy was a pioneer in naval aviation, having commissioned the world's first built-from-the-keel-up carrier, the Hosho. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, it experimented with its carriers, perfecting their design and construction. As a result, by the time Japan entered World War II and attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor in 1941, it possessed a fantastically effective naval aviation force. This book covers the design, development and operation of IJN aircraft carriers built prior to and during World War II. Pearl Harbor, Midway and the first carrier vs carrier battle, the battle of the Coral Sea, are all discussed.
