IJN Taiho Aircraft Carrier
The Taiho [transliterated as Tai-feng or Da-feng in Chinese] was the first Japanese carrier built with an armored deck and was based off the designs of the Shokaku class carriers. The Japanese "Unsinkable Air Carrier" Taifeng in World War II was Japan's answer to the ESSEX class. The TAIHO was the first and last of her class. Displacing almost 30,000 tons she approximated the American Essex class carriers in everything except longevity. At the Battle of the Philippine Sea, Mitscher's carrier planes were unable to reach TAIHO, but the ALBACORE dispatched her with a single torpedo on June 19, 1944. With the loss of the TAIHO, Admiral Ozawa also lost his most comfortable and newest flagship.
Taiho (IJN Taiho) is the first armored aircraft carrier built by the old Imperial Japanese Navy and the only armored aircraft carrier designed and built for service (Shinano is a modified armored aircraft carrier). The development code is "G13". It belongs to the "Maru 4 Construction Plan". Although it is also called the "Daifeng-class aircraft carrier", in fact, only one ship of this class is planned to be built, which has a certain experimental nature. Subsequent plans were originally planned to build a developmental G14 and a slightly modified G15, but due to Japan's urgent shortage of aircraft carriers after the Battle of Midway and the deteriorating war situation, both were cancelled. On July 10, 1941, 16 days after the converted cruise ship Hikka was launched from Slip No. 1 of the Kawasaki Shipyard in Kobe, Taiho started construction on the same slipway, laying the keel and building the hull shell, although it is a follow-up model of Shokaku, the actual hull is very different, and therefore the electric welding technology banned after the "Fourth Fleet Incident" was restarted. On April 7, 1943, Taiho successfully launched its sea trial in Kobe. Dafeng was officially commissioned on March 7, 1944 and belonged to the Third Fleet. On June 19, 1944, Tai Feng participated in the Battle of Mariana (also known as the Battle of the Philippine Sea) and was sunk by the US military. On August 26, 1945, Dafeng was released. In addition to the United Kingdom, only Japan's "Taifeng" designed the armored structure, so Japan was considered the second country in the world to build an armored aircraft carrier. The Dafeng had strengthened its armor, thinking about defending against the US military's dive bombing, but omitting the protection of the waterline. Even in the eyes of professional naval personnel, if the enemy's attack can be effectively avoided, the shortcomings of the aircraft carrier's poor survivability are not a major problem. So why were the Japanese aircraft carriers so fragile in World War II? Was there any inherent deficiencies in its large number of battles? The Japanese aircraft carrier seemed to be sentenced to death as soon as it was hit. The Japanese analysis report after the war pointed out that the damage control capability of Japanese aircraft carriers is indeed far lower than that of US aircraft carriers. First of all, starting from the "Akagi" and "Kaga" modified by battlecruisers/battleships, the Japanese army did not realize that the aviation gasoline inventory on the aircraft carrier was in great danger, and did not set up a carbon dioxide-filled cofferdam like the US army. Secondly, the Japanese army arranged complicated refueling pipelines in the aircraft carrier hangar, but the water pipes of the fire sprinkler system were simply arranged on the left and right; at the same time, high-strength steel was not used for the water pipes, so that it would be easy to be disabled by a bomb. In addition, in order to prevent the generation of flammable gas in the lower hangar of the double-layer hangar, the Japanese army installed a carbon dioxide overflow system at the bottom of the aircraft carrier's lift; however, the lack of other sealing facilities had little effect. The Japanese aircraft carrier only opened three elevator ports on the deck, and the hangar did not have any emergency doors. In this way, once the elevator is hit and damaged, the burning aircraft and ammunition in the hangar cannot be quickly thrown out. Moreover, the Japanese army's backwardness in the concept of damage management is more terrible than hardware problems. Almost all crew members on a US aircraft carrier must participate in relevant training. Once they are hit and caught fire, everyone can become a damage control team member. However, on the Japanese aircraft carrier, the number of relevant personnel is small and the status is low. According to statistics, the total number of Japanese warships involved in the naval battle on Midway Island is less than 400 professional damage management personnel. In this way, if there are a large number of casualties of professional damage management personnel in the early stage of the fire, the rest of the crew will be helpless. As early as the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, the Japanese army overemphasized the importance of front-line combatants and neglected the relevant training of logistics personnel and damage management personnel, which caused them to suffer unnecessary losses. However, the successive victories in the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War concealed huge flaws in Japan's entire military thinking and management system. As a result, in the Pacific War, the double defects of logistics and damage management were all exposed. And if someone proposes to strengthen the training of the crew's damage management ability, they will definitely be labeled as "greedy for life and fearful of death". In this way, it is inevitable that the Japanese aircraft carrier will sink as soon as it hits. The Japanese summarized the previous problems of Akagi, Kaga, and other aircraft carriers, and concluded that "Once the aircraft carrier's flight deck is destroyed by bombing, nothing can be done" and "If the bomb penetrates through the interior, it will cause fatal damage." Therefore, the flight deck of the aircraft carrier Taifeng is equipped with heavy armor that can withstand a 500kg bomb dive at a height of 700 meters. This is the first armored aircraft carrier with armor on the flight deck of the Japanese Navy, which is completely different from its fragile predecessors in the past. In addition to improved armor protection, Japan is also equipped with a 10cm "98-type 10-cm high-angle gun" and "three-type braking device" on Taifeng, which is also the only Japanese aircraft carrier. On March 7, 1944, Dafeng was completed, but due to the pressure of the war, the aircraft carrier was built too quickly and sloppily. Not only has the design to strengthen the defense in the water been omitted, but also a large number of manual workers are used, and you can imagine how high the quality can be. Only on March 28, Dafeng started to fight with the carrier-based fleet, and its crew did not even fully understand the ship's technology. On April 4, Dafeng arrived at Singapore Port, but its rough craftsmanship caused an accident. The rudder and take-off machine malfunctioned, and the switchboard suddenly exploded, causing a fire. Even the rudder could not be manipulated. On June 13 there was another accident on Dafeng. A Tianshan ship failed to attack and land. It hit the four Nine-Nine Ships on the deck and exploded. All five aircraft were destroyed and another fire was caused. This caused the morale of Dafeng's crew to be low, and almost resulted in a "serious accident that caused the military to be incompetent", but it was not clearly stated what the situation was. In this sluggish atmosphere, Dafeng began to implement the "preparations for the decisive battle of the A". The Japanese Navy supplemented the naval aviation that had suffered heavy losses before, reorganized it into an aircraft carrier fleet, merged into a first mobile fleet, and joined forces with the fifth shore-based air force to attack the US military in Mariana, and strive to kill a group of US fleets. At that time, Taifeng formed a formation with Zuizuru and Shozuru, and Taifeng was Ozawa's flagship. On June 18, Ozawa Jisaburo led his army into Mariana. Ozawa Jisaburo gave up this attractive opportunity to attack, because the sky will be dark when the attack aircraft returns, and the comet ship burst is notoriously difficult to land. On June 19, Dafeng released the carrier-based aircraft at 7:45 in the morning. A total of 16 zero battles, 17 comet ships burst, 9 Tianshan ships attacked, a total of 42 fighters, plus Ruihe, Xianghe and other carrier-based aircraft, a total of 128 fighters joined the first attack wave. At this moment, death came quietly. The US submarine "USS Albacore SS-218" had long been eyeing Taifeng, and they are very interested in this obviously different Japanese aircraft carrier. However, the Japanese aircraft carrier is busy setting off the plane, and people have not paid attention to the abnormality of the sea. The Albacore quietly touched Dafeng's side, and sprayed 6 torpedoes in one breath, which was simply brutal. It did not dare to aim too much, the torpedo shot almost in a rough way, but the 6 torpedoes that were supposed to be inaccurately accurate were shot accurately. Dafeng's crew understood the movement at this time. The watchman on the ship issued a warning that "there is a trace of thunder approaching", and the aircraft carrier quickly turned to avoid it. Five torpedoes passed the stern of Dafeng's ship, but they could not dodge the sixth round. At 8:10 in the morning, the torpedo hit the front of Dafeng's starboard side. The huge explosion shook the entire ship, and the bow began to sink under the water. The damaged pipe in the ship immediately began to repair the holes, and at the same time water was injected to the rear of the port side to restore the balance of the aircraft carrier. At that time, Dafeng's crew made another mistake. They mobilized all the staff, desperately to deal with the damage of the aircraft carrier, and used logs to drag the fighter plane out of the hangar and send it to the deck. Although this enthusiasm is respectable, but unprofessional, no one noticed that near the front elevator in the lower hangar, gasoline began to leak because of the damaged pipeline. The gasoline was volatilizing, and a large amount of gas was flooded in the ship. As a result, the headquarters urgently issued an order that "vaporized gas is permeated, smoking is forbidden, gas masks are worn, and work that can emit sparks is also forbidden." At 14:32, Dafeng suddenly started a series of big explosions. The cabins of the ship exploded one after another. There were thick smoke and flames everywhere. Dafeng repeatedly exploded while tilting to the port side, and the explosion began. All the personnel below the deck were dead, and the command organs on the bridge were transferred through the transportation boat. The last survivors were on the stern of the sinking ship, and some of the lucky ones were picked up by the neighboring warships approaching. At 16:28 pm on June 19, 1944, the 260.60-meter "unsinkable ship" Dafeng slowly slipped into the bottom of the sea, taking away 1,650 souls.|
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