Katsuragi (ship, 1944)
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Katsuragi on January 31, 1946 as a transport ship in the port of Rabaul
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The Katsuragi ( Japanese 葛 城 ), named after a mountain in the Osaka and Nara prefectures , was the last aircraft carrier of the Imperial Japanese Navy .
The carrier was the third ship of the Unryū class and the last fleet aircraft carrier completed by the Japanese Navy . The ship survived the Second World War and was still used for transport trips after the war before it was scrapped in Osaka in 1947.
draft
The basic construction of the Unryū class was based on the medium-sized pre-war buildings Sōryū and Hiryū , but was somewhat larger, designed for more modern aircraft and had only two (larger) elevators at the ends of the hangar. The new elevators measured 14.0 m × 14.0 m (front) and 14.0 m × 13.6 m (aft) in order to be able to transport larger modern aircraft. The safety cable system has also been strengthened and expanded compared to the original design (instead of 9 × Kure Type × 9, now 12 × Kusho Type × 4). Three protective barriers, type Kusho 3 No.10, to protect parked aircraft in the event of landing accidents were also installed.
Like their predecessors, the ships had two hangar decks. The upper (so-called "war hangar") for the fighter / fighter-bombers was divided into four, the lower (for the larger bombers) into three sections. Compared to the Sōryū - as a lesson from its sinking at Midway - the fire extinguishing system was revised and foam extinguishing systems were provided instead of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ). In addition, the highly explosive aircraft fuel supplies were surrounded by cement belts, fire-resistant paint was used and the easily combustible linoleum flooring was left out in favor of pure metal decks.
The bridge island was positioned to starboard as in the Sōryū , but it corresponded in shape to that of the large porters of the Shōkaku class , and was thus significantly larger than that of the Sōryū .
After the unsuccessful experiment on the Hiryū with a semi-balanced rudder amidships, the rudder system again consisted of two fully balanced, slightly sloping oars, as in Sōryū .
technical description
Armament
Planes
The Katsuragi was designed for 57 aircraft plus eight reserves. However, the plan was based on the types used at the beginning of the war in 1941 and the typical "aircraft mix" before the first war experience: 12 Mitsubishi A6M 2 Zero-Sen "Zeke" fighters (plus three reserves), 18 Nakajima B5N 2 " torpedo and horizontal bombers " Kate "(plus two reserves), and 27 dive bombers Aichi D3A 1" Val "(plus three reserves). When it was completed in 1944, the situation had changed fundamentally: since the Battle of Midway , the number of fighters on all Japanese carriers had increased considerably. In addition, at the end of 1944, the next but one generation of the Japanese carrier aircraft was available.
Due to the course of the war and the lack of pilots, aircraft on Katsuragi were only on board for test purposes; their own carrier identification was no longer assigned. Conceivable types would have been the last variant of the Zero fighter Mitsubishi A6M8 Zero-Sen “Zeke”, the universal bomber Aichi B7A Ryūsei “Grace” (combined dive or torpedo bomber) and the reconnaissance aircraft Nakajima C6N Saiun “Myrt”. As a realistic figure, including two reserve aircraft, a possible endowment of a total of 53 aircraft is estimated (27 fighters / fighter-bombers, 18 bombers, plus two reserves, 6 reconnaissance aircraft). It was planned - for the first time as part of the Japanese carrier use concept - not to accommodate the six reconnaissance aircraft in the hangar, but to leave them permanently on the flight deck. This saved hangar space (especially since the "Saiun" did not have folding wings) and made the machines ready for use more quickly.
Anti-aircraft armament
The Katsuragi received the old 12.7 cm L / 40 guns (Model 89) as heavy flak , which had been widely installed in Japanese warships since the mid-1930s and which were out of date at the end of the war. Their slow movement in rotation and elevation was particularly disadvantageous. The successor model, the new 10.0 cm L / 65 Flak, was not available in sufficient numbers. Two type 94 master transmitters were available for fire control (one next to the bridge, one in the gallery to port amidships).
On the other hand, the carrier has already been completed with a considerably reinforced light anti-aircraft armament. Originally only 39 tubes of 25 mm in 13 triplets were planned. The type ship Unryū already put 17 triplets into service with 51 tubes, and the four triplets that were immediately added aft in double platforms on both sides of the flight deck were installed on the Katsuragi from the start. The Katsuragi was therefore put into service with 63 25 mm tubes in 21 triplets and an additional 25 transportable single mounts of 25 mm caliber (a total of 88 tubes). Type 95 conductors were used for fire control, typically one for every three triplets. The added four triplets aft and the individual guns were to be aimed locally (i.e. from the gun itself). The four 25 mm triplets immediately behind the chimneys as well as their master transmitters were provided with smoke protection domes, on the 12.7 cm twin standing further aft this was no longer considered necessary because of the large distance (unlike on Sōryū ) .
Katsuragi was the only ship of its class to have the 30-tube rocket launchers for air defense (28-tube on the sister ships), which, however, were only installed subsequently in 1945 on two platforms with three launchers each on both sides of the front flight deck. Modified Type 95 systems (one on each side) were also the key factors here .
Propulsion and armor
The Katsuragi was different from the other two completed sister ships Unryu and Amagi , who possessed cruiser turbines to a total of 48,000 PSW weaker destroyer turbines (2 x 2, each with 26,000 hp instead of 38,000 hp). She was therefore 2 kn slower than this. The design speed of 32 knots was reached during the test drives in October 1944. The sea endurance was calculated as with the sister ships with 8,000 nm at 18 kn. This was never tested because the ships stopped making long journeys due to a lack of fuel. It is questionable whether the value was not too optimistic, although the Katsuragi with her smaller propulsion system was possibly a little more economical than the sister ships.
The smaller machinery with the corresponding weight savings also allowed slightly better armor on the Katsuragi than on the sister ships, instead of one layer of 46 mm CNC (Copper Non Cemented), two layers of 25 mm DS (Ducol) on top of each other were used for the side armor.
Radar system
Two Type 21 radar systems (one antenna on the bridge, one antenna on port aft on the edge of the flight deck, retractable, purpose: combined sea and air search) and two Type 13s (one at the front on the main mast, one at the rear on the foremost antenna mast on port) were already in use as radar systems. available. The type 21 device on the bridge was replaced in 1945 by a modern centimeter system for searching for a sea (type 22 quay 4). The typical passive systems (E-27) were also present, as well as some experimental systems.
camouflage
From the time of commissioning, the carrier was camouflaged in the typical anti-submarine system of the Japanese Navy for aircraft carriers (sides light green / dark green with an imitated merchant ship silhouette). In 1944, the ship was given a complex deck camouflage scheme, mainly made of green and black, which was later supplemented with additional camouflage means (nets, mock superstructures) at the berth.
history
The Katsuragi was launched in 1942 as part of the “5. Emergency Supplementary Building Program ”( 改 マ ル 5 計画 , Kai-Maru-Go-Keikaku ) as the third ship of the Unryū class. At the same time, all four other sister ships of the Unryū , the construction of which had actually started, were decided ( Amagi , Kasagi , Asō and Ikoma ).
Construction of the ship began on December 8, 1942, the first anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. It was launched on January 19, 1944. The Katsuragi began on October 15, 1944, the day of its commissioning, under the command of its equipment officer and later first in command, Kaigun-Taisa Kawabata Masaharu ( 川 畑 正治 ), with the test drives. The official test drive photo at top speed (32.0 kn) is one of the few photos from the Japanese side that have been preserved of the ship from the war. Further test drives followed until December 1944, exclusively in the Japanese inland sea. It took place at the end of October 1944 association trips with the sister ship Unryū , and in November and December with the sister ship Amagi .
On November 15, 1944, the Katsuragi was officially declared operational and assigned to the first carrier division under Rear Admiral Komura Keizō ( 古村 啓 蔵 ), but still without its own on-board aircraft squadron. The allocation should have been made from the air group (Kōkūtai) 601, which, however, remained land-based at this time. Only trials took place.
On January 23, 1945, the carrier was ordered from Kure to Yokosuka to pick up torpedo bombers of the Yokosuka air group for training purposes, but was called back to Kure on February 4. Due to the lack of trained carrier pilots and the proximity of the fighting at land bases, an offensive deployment with a carrier combat group was no longer sensible. The 1st carrier division, to which the sister ship Amagi belonged in addition to the Katsuragi , was dissolved, and both ships were directly subordinated to the Rengō Kantai , the entire fleet for home defense. Air group 601, intended for airborne operations, was used to defend Iwojima from land, where it achieved not inconsiderable successes, such as the sinking of the US escort carrier USS Bismarck Sea (CVE 95) on February 21, 1945 and the severe damage to the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga (CV 3) .
On February 15, 1945, the Katsuragi was anchored in Kure together with the Amagi and the escort carrier Kaiyō . On March 19, 1945, the base was attacked by American carrier aircraft, the Katsuragi received two hits from 5-inch missiles and one near hit, which caused only minor damage. After the repair, it was nevertheless decided to shut down the carrier due to a lack of operating materials and possibilities of use. On 24./25. March 1945, the ship was assigned to the reserve fleet of the 4th District (Kure) and permanently moored on the island of Mitsukojima ( 三 ツ 子 島 ). In addition to the camouflage, it was lavishly provided with privacy screens, which included dummy structures in the form of buildings, camouflage nets and trees (!) Planted on board. The flight deck was partly painted over and partly filled with sand. The machinery was switched off and the ship was supplied with electricity from shore. However, all anti-aircraft weapons remained fully operational, with appropriate manning.
On April 1, 1945, Kaigun-Taisa Hiratsuka Shirō ( 平 塚 四郎 ) took command. The crew was partly distributed between the battleship Yamato and the 2nd fleet. The sister ship Amagi , which was initially still active for a few weeks , was also deactivated in a similar manner on April 13, 1945 and camouflaged at the other end of the island. On April 20, 1945, Captain Hiratsuka took command of the Amagi , Kaigun-Taisa Miyazaki Toshio ( 宮 崎 俊男 ) was the third and last in command of the Katsuragi .
On July 24, 1945, the final major air raids by the American carrier fleet began on the Japanese war ports. The Katsuragi was only attacked sporadically due to its camouflage, with its air defense very effectively keeping the American Helldiver dive bombers away. Only one grazing hit on an anti-aircraft battery port amidships was achieved by around a dozen attacking aircraft (13 dead, 5 injured), without structural damage to the ship. The second wave of attacks took place on July 28, 1945. This time the Katsuragi received a direct hit from a 1,000 kg bomb in the area of the front elevator. The elevator was damaged, the flight deck was torn off to around 80 m from the fuselage and severely bent in this area. The shock wave also wreaked havoc in the empty hangar. There were only casualties on the bridge from fragmentation (13 dead, 12 injured), but the half-armored upper deck kept damage away from the ship's interior. Since the hangar deck was empty, there were no fires. The Katsuragi remained seaworthy.
The Katsuragi could therefore be handed over to the Americans in a running condition in August 1945. However, they left the carrier under Japanese administration, where he was assigned to the 4th reserve fleet on September 10, 1945, one week after the surrender. Still under the command of Captain Miyasaki , the Katsuragi ran out for the first time as a transport ship in October 1945. In November 1945 the ship was docked in Kure for repairs. It was decided not to restore operational capability as an aircraft carrier. The damaged aircraft elevators were shut down, the flight deck repaired, and the hangars converted into transport and living quarters. The Katsuragi could carry a maximum of 3,000 passengers. For ventilation, new ventilation systems were drawn in through the flight deck, the "necks" of which were now prominently visible on the flight deck. The camouflage was removed and replaced by the uniform navy gray blue, with the Japanese (civil) flag and name in western letters for identification on the hull. All armament was removed, but the type 22 fire control radar, which can be used as a navigation radar, remained on board.
The Katsuragi was then used in particular to bring home Japanese soldiers and prisoners of war from formerly Japanese-occupied areas in Southeast Asia. On December 18, 1945, she set out on her first voyage, which took her to Rabaul in the Bismarck Archipelago and to Australia. In January 1946 further repairs were carried out in Kure, and on January 15, 1946 the Katsuragi sailed again towards Wewak and Rabaul. Further transport trips followed by April 1946, especially to Torokina and Nauru, on which a total of 12,000 men were brought back to Japan. The ship was then moored in Kurihama. During the year, however , the Katsuragi drove u. a. to Saigon and Medan, Singapore and Bangkok , until they were finally no longer used at the end of 1946. In the storm near the Philippines, she last suffered machine damage after a 30-degree heel.
While the Katsuragi never left the local waters during the war, after the war she made numerous journeys with considerable distances. She was the largest Japanese warship that was used after the war for such so-called reparation trips to return Japanese troops and prisoners of war from overseas.
On November 15, 1946, the Katsuragi was the last aircraft carrier of the Imperial Japanese Navy to be removed from the naval register and handed over to the Ministry of Navy for sale. She was briefly brought to Sasebo. From December 22, 1946 to November 30, 1947, the ship was scrapped at Hitachi Zosen in Osaka . Around 11,000 tons of reusable scrap metal were recovered.
Models
Two Japanese manufacturers currently offer plastic model kits of the Katsuragi in the standard scale 1: 700 waterline (appearance early 1945).
Remarks
- ↑ a b The Japanese rank Taisa corresponds to the German rank of captain at sea . The prefix Kaigun indicates that it is a naval officer.
See also
literature
- Maru Special: The Imperial Japanese Navy, Vol.3 (Aircraft Carriers I) . Kaijinsha, Tokyo 1989, ISBN 4-7698-0453-9 .
- Fukui Shizuo: Japanese Naval Vessels Illustrated, 1869-1945, Vol.3, Aircraft Carriers. Bestsellers Publ., Tokyo 1982, ISBN 4-584-17023-1 .
- Todaka Kazushige: Japanese Warship Photo Album Vol.3, Aircraft Carrier and Seaplane Carrier. Diamond Co., Kure 2005, ISBN 4-478-95056-3 .
- Watanabe Yoshiyuki: The Aircraft Carriers of the Imperial Japanese Navy and Army . Gakken, Tokyo 2003, 2nd edition 2004, ISBN 4-05-603055-3 .
- Kizu Tohru: History of Japanese Aircraft Carriers (Ships of the World Vol.481). Kaijinsha, Tokyo 1994.
- Kinushima S .: Drawings of Imperial Japanese Naval Vessels Vol.3, Aircraft Carriers . Model Art Publ., Tokyo 1999.
- Imperial Japanese Aircraft Carriers . Maru Magazine, Japan at War (in 20 volumes), Vol.12, Maruzen, Tokyo 1972.
- Maru Special, Japanese Naval Vessels (2nd series), Volume 131: Japanese Aircraft Carriers in War Part 3 , Kaijinsha / Maruzen, Tokyo 1988 (with a detailed folding plan of the Unryu in its final state, identical to the Katsuragi ).
- Michel Ledet: Samourai sur Porte-Avions . Editions Lela Presse, Outreau 2006, ISBN 2-914017-32-4 .
Web links
- Katsuragi at combinedfleet.com (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Joachim Wätzig: The Japanese Fleet - From 1868 to today . Brandenburgisches Verlagshaus, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-89488-104-6 . P. 183
- ^ US Naval Technical Mission To Japan, Reports of damage to japanese warships article 1, Index No. S-06
