Ryūhō
.jpg) The Ryūhō 1945
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The Ryûho ( Jap. 龍鳳 ) was a light aircraft carrier and one of the hidden structures of the Imperial Japanese Navy from the 1930s that should be rebuilt in the event of war from other types of ships to quickly light fleet carriers. The ship survived the Pacific War and was scrapped in 1946.
history
She began her ship life as a submarine escort ship Taigei . On December 20, 1941, the ship was reclassified as a reserve ship, 3rd class and placed under the Kure naval district , and the conversion to a light fleet carrier began immediately. During the lay time there in dry dock , the ship was hit directly by a bomb on April 18, 1942 during the Doolittle Raid . There were seven injured and the renovation was slightly delayed.
On November 30, 1942, the conversion was officially completed and the ship under the command of Kaigun-Taisa Nobishirō Sōma put into service as an aircraft carrier Ryūhō and directly subordinated to the 3rd Fleet. However, the Ryūhō was not assigned its own flight group.
During the first mission as an aircraft transporter from Yokosuka to Truk , the Ryūhō was attacked 160 nautical miles east of Hachijō-jima by the US submarine USS Drum on December 12, 1942 and received a torpedo hit on starboard amidships. The damage was not threatening, but the ship had to return to Yokosuka for repairs and did not return to service until March 19, 1943.
Various training and supply trips to Japanese ports followed. On June 11, 1943, the Ryūhō took over the Hiyō's flying group after it had been torpedoed by a US submarine on June 11 outside Tokyo Bay . The very next day the carrier was placed under the 3rd Fleet, 2nd Carrier Division and moved to Truk as a base in June.
In late July and August, the Ryūhō was in use in the inland sea and trained the Hiyō flying group, which was returned to the Hiyō on August 30th . The Ryūhō was then subordinated to the marine district Kure as a guard ship.
By the end of January 1944, the ship made some supply trips to Singapore, Palau and Truk. Because of the heavy losses of merchant ships by US submarines, urgently needed supplies were increasingly transported to the Japanese bases in the Pacific by warships.
See also
Remarks
- ↑ The Japanese rank Taisa corresponds to the German rank of captain at sea . The prefix Kaigun indicates that it is a naval officer.
literature
- Hansgeorg Jentschura, Dieter Jung, Peter Mickel: Warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy 1869-1945 . US Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 1977, ISBN 0-87021-893-X , pp. 49-50 u. 238 (English).
- Mark Stille: Imperial Japanese Navy Aircraft Carriers 1921–45 . Osprey Publishing , Oxford 2012, ISBN 978-1-84176-853-3 , pp. 24 u. 33 (English).
- Joachim Wätzig: The Japanese Fleet - From 1868 until today. Brandenburgisches Verlagshaus, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-89488-104-6 .
Web links
- Ryūhō on combinedfleet.com (English)
- Ryūhō on ww2db.com (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Joachim Wätzig: The Japanese Fleet - From 1868 to today. Brandenburgisches Verlagshaus, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-89488-104-6 . P. 183.