The shortest life-to-life carrier in history——17 heavenly aircraft in service in Japan

Aircraft carriers are the most powerful and combat-ready weapons in modern naval warfare. It is regarded as the giant of the 20th century at sea, and World War II was the heyday of the development and use of aircraft carriers, when nearly 200 aircraft carriers were cruising the oceans on both sides of the war. One of the largest aircraft carriers was the Japanese Navy's super-battleship Shinano. However, the battleship had a bad fate and failed to play its due role, and like the Titanic, it was destroyed on its maiden voyage.

1. Construction background

In the Battle of Midway in June 1942, the Japanese Navy lost four of its main aircraft carriers and was in dire need of replenishment of its carrier forces. The Shinano was originally the third in the Yamato series of super-battleships, and construction began in May 1940 at the Yokosuka Shipyard in Japan, after the construction of the Yamato and Musashi began. However, during the construction period, the Japanese suffered a crushing defeat at Midway, and the sinking of four heavy aircraft carriers led to a significant reduction in the maneuvering forces of the Japanese aircraft carriers. The Japanese Navy was helpless and had no choice but to order the Shinano, which had already completed half of the construction plan, to be converted into an aircraft carrier. The construction of the ship was the No. 1 secret of the Japanese army, and the location of the shipyard was hidden, and the workers who built it were not allowed to step out of the factory during the construction of the ship. Shinano's original plan was to be completed by December 1944. However, due to the severe damage of the Japanese Combined Fleet in 1944, a large number of ships were overhauled at the Yokosuka shipyard, and the construction of the Shinano was interrupted for several months. After the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the Japanese Navy's aircraft carrier mobile force was almost completely annihilated, and the embarrassing situation of having no ships available and the imminent demise of the empire made the Japanese Navy strictly order that the Shinano must be built in 1944. The shipyard had to work day and night and neglect minor processes as much as possible, and was reluctantly announced to be completed on November 19, 1944. On November 11, the Shinano underwent its first public test in Tokyo Bay, and then entered service on November 19 and was incorporated into the First Air Force of the Third Fleet. The head of outfitting, Shuno Abe, was appointed as the captain, and the Kono Tsutoshi Osaku was appointed as the deputy captain and the chief of the agency, with a crew of about 2,400 people.

2. The performance of the Shinano

The Shinano was named after the Shinano Province, an ancient feudal state in Nagano Prefecture, Honshu, Japan. There is a theory about the name of the Shinano: in mid-1944, the Japanese government had already become aware of fighting on its own soil and began to secretly build a base camp in Matsushiro, Nagano Prefecture, in preparation for the transfer of the emperor to Matsushiro after the Allied landing, and it would become the temporary capital, the future national capital Matsushiro. Shinano has 12 power main boilers, 4 steam turbines, 150,000 horsepower, a maximum speed of 28 knots, and a cruising range of 10,000 nautical miles at 18 knots. The power is comparable to that of the Yamato class, and the endurance of the Shinano is much higher than that of the first two ships of the Yamato class

Standard displacement: 64,800 tons / 72,890 tons (full load)

Power: 153,000 hp

Flight deck length: 266 meters

Speed: up to 27 knots

Endurance: 10,000 nm / 18 knots

Artillery: 16 main guns 5 inches, 12 secondary guns 4.7 inches, 145 anti-aircraft guns 25mm, 22 13mm guns

Standard carrier-based aircraft: 47 aircraft, maximum aircraft can be carried 120 aircraft

Crew: 2400 people

3. The maiden voyage of the Shinano

Due to the increasing intensity of the air raids on the Keihin area by US aircraft at this time, the Navy decided to transfer the Shinano to Kure Port, which was relatively safe in the Inland Sea. On November 24, Vice Takeshi Toyoda, commander of the Combined Fleet, sent a telegram to Abe: "The Shinano and the 17th Destroyer Fleet are heading back to the western part of the Seto Inland Sea. He also entrusted Abe himself to decide on the route and departure time. After receiving the commander's return order, Abe dutifully summoned the principal officers below the vice captain to consult. On the 27th, he and the captains of the three destroyers agreed on the final time and route of the voyage, and the three captains did not approve of night sailing, but instead believed that it was safer to sail along the coast during the day, and the experienced captain Shinano also supported the opinions of these captains, but Abe overwhelmed these opinions with authority, and finally maintained the original plan.

At 13:32 on November 28, 1944, the Shinano, carrying most of its officers and men, some outfitting engineers and other crews, left Yokosuka under the escort of the ships Hamakaze, Isokaze, and Yukikaze of the 17th Destroyer Fleet. The Shinano, escorted by the 17th Destroyer Fleet, carefully followed a zigzag course, which was more time-consuming and cumbersome to maneuver, but was still more likely to cause problems for the primitive submarine torpedo fire control system than a direct course. After nightfall, for the sake of safety, the four ships adopted strict air traffic control and secrecy measures and turned off all lights.

4. The Shinano was sunk

At the same time that the radar of the US submarine Shooting Fish discovered the formation of the Shinano, the reverse detector on the Shinano also sensed the radar signal, and Captain Abe judged that the US military might be luring the enemy, and he thought that it should not be entangled with the US submarine, and ordered the Japanese warship to drive away at a high speed of more than 25 knots, but the maximum speed of the US submarine was only 18 knots, and the submarine was thrown away from it, but the Shinano was not angry. The scrambled aircraft carrier had problems after a few hours at full speed, and one of its main shafts malfunctioned, reducing the Shinano's speed to 15 knots. The Shooting Fish was sailing at full speed, and finally in the early morning of November 28, the Shinano was spotted again, and three Japanese high-speed destroyers were found escorting.

Enwright, the captain of the USS Waterfish, exemplifies the bravery of an American soldier who decides to take the risk of attacking. As long as such an important target as the Shinano was destroyed, he and his crew could risk their lives. The submarine then dived and prepared a torpedo while waiting for an ambush on the Shinano. It didn't take long for the Japanese fleet to come quickly, first of all, a Japanese destroyer almost drove over the Shooting Fish, and the sound of high-speed propellers was deafening. At this time, the Shooting Fish had no room to fight back, and could only hope for God's blessing. Fortunately, the Japanese ships did not find the American submarine. As soon as the Japanese destroyer sailed by, the Shooting Fish immediately surfaced, and sure enough, the Shinano's huge figure was close at hand. The Waterfish fired six torpedoes at the ship at once, four of which accurately hit the Shinano, causing a huge explosion. At this time, the Japanese destroyer also spotted the water fish and frantically pounced on it. The Shooting Fish scrambled down to the 400-foot diving limit to evade the attack. Once again, the god of luck took care of the submarine, which miraculously dodged the close-range attack of twenty depth charges and then left the battlefield at high speed.

At 3:04 a.m., the Shinano's cabin was torn open with a 10-meter-wide opening, and the sea water poured in.

At 5 o'clock, the hull was heavily tilted.

At 8 o'clock, water entered the power compartment and the boilers were all paralyzed.

At 10:18, Toshio Abe gave the order to abandon the ship, while the three destroyers began to transfer the crew of the Shinano. Thirty minutes later, Shinano sank, and only 1,080 of the Shinano's 2,515 crew members were rescued (not including Toshio Abe), and 1,435 people were killed.

With the first voyage less than 20 hours later, the world's largest ship, the Shinano, sank, which was also the largest warship sunk by a submarine in the history of the world. Suffice it to say that having strong armor and underwater defenses and sinking quickly after being hit by just four torpedoes seems incomprehensible. The Musashi, which was almost equivalent in defensive capability and was hit by a full twenty torpedoes, eventually sank; The Yamato was besieged by more than 300 US planes and sank only after being hit by 12 torpedoes and 7 bombs. In contrast, Shinano once specially strengthened its underwater defense capabilities, why is it so vulnerable? The reasons are as follows:

1. This is a "half-pulled project", the details have not been completed, and many watertight cabin doors cannot be closed tightly, or even no doors at all, resulting in a large amount of seawater entering.

2. The ship's drainage system has not been completed, the steam water pump has not been installed, the drainage pipe is not complete, and the manual water pump is too small to meet the needs.

3. The quality of the sailors is very poor, and they can still drain water under unified command in the initial stage. Once the ship tilted to a certain extent, it immediately lost its courage and fled in all directions, causing the ship to lose its organized rescue. In short, the Shinano remains an important warship in the history of the Japanese Navy, and its birth and demise predicted to some extent the inevitable outcome of Japan in World War II.

Well, today's article ends here, thank you for having such a good temperament and come to see Xiao Jia's article, friends who like history and real estate knowledge, you can pay attention to Xiao Jia, and good articles ^_^ will be updated every day