Sōryū (ship, 1935)

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Sōryū
The Sōryū 1938
The Sōryū 1938
Ship data
flag JapanJapan (naval war flag) Japan
Ship type Aircraft carrier
class Sōryū class
Shipyard Naval shipyard in Kure
Keel laying November 20, 1934
Launch December 21, 1935
Commissioning December 29, 1937
Whereabouts June 4, 1942 after air strikes dropped
Ship dimensions and crew
length
227.5 m ( Lüa )
width 21.3 m
Draft Max. 7.62 m
displacement Standard : 15,900 tn.l.
maximum: 19,500 tn.l.
 
crew 1,100
Machine system
machine 8 Kampon steam boilers
4 steam turbines
Machine
performance 		152,000 PS (111,796 kW)
Top
speed 		34.5 kn (64 km / h)
propeller 4th
Armament

Anti-aircraft artillery

Armor
  • Belt armor: 46 mm
  • Armored deck: 25 mm
Furnishing
Flight deck dimensions

217 m × 26 m

Aircraft capacity

1942:
18 A6M
18 D3A
18 B5N
2 D4Y
9 reserve

The Sōryū ( Japanese 蒼龍 'blue dragon') was an aircraft carrier of the Imperial Japanese Navy . The carrier built in Kure was the type ship of the Sōryū class . She was used in the Pacific War until her sinking on June 4, 1942 .

Construction and construction

The Sōryū in 1937 in the equipment phase

The Ryūjō , which was laid down in 1929, had severe deficits in terms of aircraft capacity. Attempts to solve this problem with add-ons led to trimming problems.

This was taken into account when planning the successor class and the Sōryū was built with the hull shape of a heavy cruiser and significantly larger hangars than the Ryūjō . In order to increase stability, the lower hangar deck was pulled down so far that it reached into the fuselage. The exhaust gases were discharged on the starboard side via two chimneys and the Sōryū , unlike its predecessor, carried a small bridge tower on the starboard side of the flight deck .

Calls

Pacific War

The Sōryū in the background, shortly before their aircraft took off on December 7, 1941

After participating in the attack on Canton in 1938, the Sōryū was used on December 7, 1941 as part of the Kidō Butai in the attack on Pearl Harbor .

Their warplanes then flew attacks against Wake between December 21 and 23 . In January 1942 she successfully supported the landings on Palau and Ambon .

On February 19, 1942, air raids on Darwin in Australia were carried out from her . From the Sōryū 18 B5N torpedo bombers and 18 dive bombers were used against the ships lying in the port between 6:30 a.m. and 12 noon.

In March 1942 she was involved in the Battle of the Java Sea , in which her planes sank the naval tanker Pecos .

In April 1942 she took part in the attack in the Indian Ocean , in which, among other things, the Royal Navy base on Ceylon attacked on April 5, 1942, the British cruisers Cornwall and Dorsetshire, and on April 9 the British aircraft carrier Hermes and the Australian destroyer Vampires were sunk in Trincomalee .

After the American aircraft carrier Hornet from launched Doolittle Raid on Tokyo on April 18, 1942, followed soryu the American carrier fleet, but without success.

Battle for Midway

The Sōryū lying in the roadstead

In June 1942, the Sōryū was part of the Japanese aircraft carrier fleet, which should secure the invasion of Japanese troops on the Midway Islands . Kaigun-Chūjō Nagumo led with his staff the command of the fleet from the Akagi .

The Sōryū belonged together with the Hiryū to the Second Carrier Division, over which Kaigun-Shōshō Yamaguchi led the command from the Hiryū . The commander of the Sōryū was Kaigun-Taisa Ryūsaku Yanagimoto.

The aircraft carrier carried 18 Mitsubishi A6M 2 fighters, 18 Aichi D3A 1 dive bombers, and 18 Nakajima B5N 2 torpedo bombers. In addition, there were two experimental Yokosuka D4Y that were assigned to the Sōryū for testing purposes. Furthermore, she carried two dismantled reserve machines for each of the three standard types and had three dismantled aircraft from Group 6 on board, which were later to be stationed on Midway Island.

For easier identification by its own pilots, a red circle with a white border was drawn across the entire width of the deck on the front quarter of the flight deck . Immediately on the rear edge of the flight deck, the Katakana lettering for SA was painted on the deck on the port side to identify the carrier as Sōryū for pilots on approach for landing .

At 4.30 am started from the soryu 18 B5N torpedo bomber, but armed with number 80 - bombs (805 kg), to attack American defenses on the Midway Atoll. They were accompanied by nine A6M2 fighters. At 6:34 a.m. they attacked the target and dropped their bombs from great heights (2700 and 3400 meters). They reported the deactivation of an anti-aircraft position, damage to the runway and the hangars of the airfield. A B5N torpedo bomber was shot down by American fighter planes, all the others suffered fire damage.

The fighter planes of the Sōryū were involved in aerial battles with fighters of the US Marine Corps over the atoll , whereby none of their A6M2 fighters were shot down and four enemy machines were declared as safe kills.

The Sōryū fighter planes , which were used to protect their own fleet, were repeatedly involved in aerial battles with attacking American squadrons between 7:05 a.m. and 10:15 a.m. These were made up of B-26 , B-17 bombers and other aircraft launched by Midway. Then in the morning there were squadrons of the aircraft carriers Enterprise , Hornet and Yorktown . A total of 21 enemy aircraft were reported as kills by the pilots of the A6M "Zero" of the Sōryū .

During the attack by three B-17 bombers on the morning of June 4 at 8.35 a.m., the Sōryū made an evasive maneuver.

On the Sōryū , the D3A dive bombers, which had not participated in the bombing in the morning, were kept ready to attack possible enemy ship targets. At 7.15 a.m. the order was given to start a second wave against Midway. For this, the bombs on the aircraft that were intended to attack ships had to be exchanged for those intended to attack land targets. The work of the maintenance crews was interrupted at 7.45 a.m. when the order was issued to stop the conversion, as an enemy fleet had been sighted.

When the planes of the first wave began to return and American planes put the fleet under pressure through loss-making attacks, the commander, Vice Admiral Nagumo, decided at 9:05 a.m. that all planes of the first wave should first land so that the fleet could head north. It was supposed to attack the opposing fleet, to which an aircraft carrier belonged after observation by a reconnaissance aircraft.

At 9.15 a.m., the Sōryū and the other carriers reported that they would have completed the refueling and arming of all aircraft between 10.30 a.m. and 11.00 a.m. At 10.15 a.m., a new group of three A6M2 Zero fighter aircraft took off from the Sōryū to secure the unit itself, in order to replace the machines that had largely fired their ammunition in defense of previous attacks. However, they were immediately involved in aerial battles with American torpedo bombers at low altitude.

Downfall

At 10:25 a.m., the Sōryū was attacked by Douglas SBD dive bombers from the American aircraft carrier Yorktown . She was lifted from three 1,000- lb. in 5 minutes. - (453 kg) bombs hit. Although there have been Akagi and Kaga almost met the same time, but the damage on the Soryu were particularly heavy.

The first bomb hit was on the front half of the ship, penetrated the 4.5 cm thick wooden flight deck and exploded in the upper hangar. The explosion set several aircraft on fire there and the shock wave hurled the forward elevator aft. The second bomb exploded between planes waiting to take off on deck and immediately set several of them on fire. The leaking fuel spread over the flight deck and ignited. The third bomb hit the rear half of the ship, penetrated the flight deck, exploded in the rear hangar and also set aircraft parked there on fire. As a result, the Sōryū was in flames shortly after the attack from bow to stern. At around 10.30 a.m., there was a serious explosion in one of the camps inside the ship, where bombs and torpedoes were stored.

Her commander, Yanagimoto, initially continued command from the signal platform of the bridge tower, but was severely burned . Numerous secondary explosions of torpedoes and bombs in the hangars shook the hull and killed many crew members. The machinery already failed shortly after the hits around 10.40 a.m. and it quickly became clear that the ship could not be stopped. Yanagimoto gave the order to leave the ship at 10.45 a.m. He himself decided to stay on board and burned himself on the signal platform.

After the sailors had left the carrier, they were picked up by a cutter of the cruiser Chikuma and later transferred to the destroyers Hamakaze and Isokaze .

Since the ship was damaged, but initially no water ingress was recorded, it is controversial whether it later sank as a result of progressive flooding, triggered by explosions in the ship, or by a Type 93 torpedo of the Isokaze .

The Sōryū began to sink at 7:12 p.m. and went down within a few minutes. The Hamakaze announced at 19:15 the sinking of the ship of Vice Admiral Nagumo, who now is on the light cruiser Nagara was staying. At 7:20 p.m. a strong underwater explosion occurred at the point where the Sōryū had sunk. This explosion probably came from hot steam boilers that exploded on contact with the cold sea water.

For some time it was suspected that the submarine Nautilus might have sunk the damaged Sōryū , but this is considered unlikely.

losses

In addition to Captain Yanagimoto, 717 of 1,100 crew members were killed. The Sōryū's first officer , Ohara, estimated that 30 out of 40 pilots who were on board at the time of the attack were killed. Determining the exact number of people who were killed on the Sōryū was difficult, as there were civilian reporters on board.

wreck

So far, no serious attempts have been made to track down the wreck of the Sōryū . The presumed Untergangsort was approximately 30 ° 42 '  N , 178 ° 37'  W coordinates: 30 ° 42 '5 "  N , 178 ° 37' 5"  W .

Name tradition

The Sōryū class , a class of new Japanese submarines, bears the name of the ship. The first boat of the class, the Sōryū , was launched on December 5, 2007.

See also

Evidence and references

Remarks

  1. ↑ The date depends on the time zone used and changes to June 5th for the time zone used by the Japanese at the time.
  2. ↑ The Japanese rank Chūjō corresponds to the German rank of Vice Admiral . The prefix Kaigun indicates that it is a naval officer.
  3. ↑ The Japanese rank Shōshō corresponds to the German rank of rear admiral . The prefix Kaigun indicates that it is a naval officer.
  4. ↑ The Japanese rank Taisa corresponds to the German rank of captain at sea . The prefix Kaigun indicates that it is a naval officer.
  5. ↑ All times for the Battle of Midway are given in the literature either according to Japanese time, i.e. UTC +9 hours, or according to the time used by the Americans, UTC −12 hours (as in this article), so that the corresponding date can differ by one day. See the article time zone .
  6. ↑ "... a United States submarine scored three torpedo hits on the smoking carrier Soryu as the enemy was attempting to take it in tow ..." something like: "... a submarine of the United States scored three torpedo hits on the smoking Soryu than the Opponents tried to take them in tow ... " [1]

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A battle history of the Imperial Japanese Navy. P. 54.
  2. ↑ a b Shattered Sword, Tully / Parshall. P. 282.
  3. ^ A battle history of the Imperial Japanese Navy. P. 184.
  4. ↑ Shattered Sword. Tully / Parshall, p. 193.
  5. ^ The Japanese Story Of The Battle Of Midway. OPNAV P32-1002, pp. 43, 44.
  6. ^ The Japanese Story Of The Battle Of Midway. OPNAV P32-1002, p. 47.
  7. ^ The Japanese Story Of The Battle Of Midway. OPNAV P32-1002, p. 14.
  8. ^ The Japanese Story Of The Battle Of Midway. OPNAV P32-1002, p. 15.
  9. ^ The Japanese Story Of The Battle Of Midway. OPNAV P32-1002, p. 17.
  10. ↑ Midway inquest: why the Japanese lost the Battle of Midway. P. 207.
  11. ^ A b The Japanese Story Of The Battle Of Midway. OPNAV P32-1002, p. 10.
  12. ↑ 10:40 am, according to Shattered Sword, Tully / Parshall, p. 282.
  13. ^ A b A battle history of the Imperial Japanese Navy. P. 153.
  14. ^ The Japanese Story Of The Battle Of Midway. OPNAV P32-1002, p. 21.
  15. ↑ [2] Tabular operational history of the Soryu at Combinedfleet.com, viewed on August 4, 2010
  16. ^ The Japanese Story Of The Battle Of Midway. Office of Naval Intelligence, USN, 1947, OPNAV P32-1002, p. 34.
  17. ^ Peter C. Smith: First from the Sky: Japan´s Dive-Bomber Ace of World War II. Stackpole Co, 2006, p. 218.
  18. ↑ [3] Information on the Sōryū on history.navy.mil, viewed on August 4, 2010
  19. ↑ Midway inquest: why the Japanese lost the Battle of Midway. P. 233.
  20. ^ The Japanese Story Of The Battle Of Midway. Office of Naval Intelligence, USN, 1947, OPNAV P32-1002, p. 53.

literature

Literature in Japanese language:

Literature in other languages:

  • Jonathan Parshall / Anthony Tully: Shattered Sword. Potomac Books, 2005, ISBN 1-57488-924-9 .
  • Dallas Woodbury Isom: Midway inquest: why the Japanese lost the Battle of Midway. Indiana University Press, 2007, ISBN 0-253-34904-4 .
  • The Japanese Story Of The Battle Of Midway. Translation, Office of Naval Intelligence, USN, 1947, OPNAV P32-1002.

Web links

Commons : Sōryū (1935)  - album with pictures, videos and audio files