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IJN Soryu & Hiryu - Guide 347
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ส.ค. 2023
- The Soryu and Hiryu, aircraft carriers of the Imperial Japanese Navy, are today's subject.
Read more about the the ships here:
www.amazon.co.uk/Japanese-Air...
www.amazon.co.uk/Imperial-Jap...
www.amazon.co.uk/Sry-Hiry-Unr...
www.amazon.co.uk/Aircraft-Car...
www.amazon.co.uk/Warship-2022...
Naval History books, use code 'DRACH' for 25% off - www.usni.org/press/books?f%5B...
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Music - • Video
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Pinned post for Q&A :)
What is your opinion about the viability of launching vengeance weapons from U-Boats? The krouts didn’t seem too far off from developing and deploying them towards the end of the war.
What was the best meal you had whilst visiting Orstralia?
HI Niel, I wonder if you have ever covered HMS Thetis and if so could you pop a link at all? Many thanks. ☘️
Does coastal defense ship count as battleship?
I was watching a documentary on the ocean liner Normandie and they mentioned that Normandie's designer was originally known for designing some revolutionary Battlecruisers and submarines for the Imperial Russian navy however they didn't say much about them only that work stopped on them mid construction due to the Russian Revolution but it made me curious what made these ships so revolutionary?
USA : "- I Hyriu lost some aircraft carriers recently, I'm Soryu about it."
IJN: "Soryu, I can't Hiryu 🫥"
😂
Groan.. And before I had my coffee..
The worst jokes are always the best.
@@Colonel_Overkill The truth is, I'm sorry I didn't think of it first!
If you really think about it. They are the IJN equivalents of Yorktown and Enterprise.
Both are the respective 5th and 6th carriers of their navies.
Both were 2nd generation purpose-built fleet carriers.
Both were lightly designed due to the treaty limits.
Both were built in the mid-late 1930s.
Both were part of their navies Carrier Division 2 and led by aggressive Admirals. Tamon Yamaguchi and William F Halsey.
Both had their main strike strength in the form of dive bombers, both for carrying well-trained pilots and effective aircraft like the Val and Dauntless.
And in the case of Soryu, Hiryu and Yorktown, they were lost at Midway.
The only thing missing is Hiryu surviving the battle and going on to be as big a menace for the US Navy (along with Shokaku and Zuikaku) as Enterprise was for the IJN
Best Tomboy Hiryu is
@@AelxiSoryu and Shangri-La tied for best Megane carrier.
@@ph89787 you forgor Langley
@@ph89787Azur Lane joke?
@@knskumo yep
I still love that scene in the Midway movie where the captain and first officer stay onboard the carrier for her scuttling and him saying "Then let us watch the sunset together"
Watch the moon,
@@pauldietz1325 Thanks, memory is a tricky thing sometimes. :) (especially when it has been a while since watching)
The Japanese idiom is, "Let us enjoy the moon together". Also, it was Admiral Yamaguchi and the Hiryu's commanding officer, Capt. Kaku Tomeo, who remained aboard, not the captain and XO. (Sorry, being a detail nerd here ...)
@@DarthAverage I have to figure that idiom showed up aboard some of the Akizuki-class destroyers, what with all their names being moon-themed ("tsuki", which sometimes becomes "zuki" depending on the preceding syllables, means "moon").
Bear in mind, though, that the captain isn't actually required to go down with his ship. He IS required to be the last man off, after having made sure his crew is safe and sound. "ALWAYS going down with the ship" is the more sensible trope flanderized into something more dangerous.
The story of Soryu's final survivors who escaped from deep within the hull is such a harrowing story, another reason to read Shattered Sword
Thanks for the info of the book!
These ships had quite the fighting record before meeting their fate. I would count them as successful designs certainly.
Great for raids against third world countries and poorly defended islands perhaps. Not for blue-water combat toe-to-toe with 'Murrica.
Yeah, given their tonnage limitations they were fine ships. That they got sunk doesn't mean they were bad, merely that they belonged to the IJN in WW2.
They along with Ranger and Wasp were incapable of taking a hit. As long as they were protected from attack they did well.
@@rohanthandi4903 Yeah what about 1943, 1944, and 1945? Lucky?
@@rohanthandi4903 Yeah history of America being awesome and Japan sucking. U! S! A!...U! S! A!
Warspite hunting two carriers at night sounds like something that would happen to Warspite
It was a shame Warspite is not a museum.
@@richardthomas5362while a true shame, could you imagine warspite allowing itself to be setup as a museum, quite sure that during the Falklands it would have found a way to go chew on the Argentine navy even without a crew.
@@cgi2002 I would say that would be ludicrous, BUT, given Warspite's history....
Knowing her history, Warspite would have won that war single handed.
That would have ended poorly…for the carriers
The Japanese had some great names for their ships. Blue Dragon, Flying Dragon...love that.
Shame the white dragon never flew
Up with the Brits as having the coolest names, to me.
@@BleedingUranium In Red Storm Rising an American captain jokes with a Brit captain of HMS Battle Ax that his ship was named after his mother in law.
And don't forget Akagi the "Red Castle." Though TBH, given her badass record in World War II, no ship's name will ever be cooler than Enterprise, or more appropriate for the greatest Starship of them all. (Why, yes, I am a Trekkie. Why do you ask?)
An episode many have been anticipating. Love how Drach, to this day, uses the robot voice at the end of the episode.
"French Indochina" is now Laos, Cambodia, AND Vietnam. Not just Vietnam.
Just imagine flying off the G6 and losing power just as you came off the end and landing on the turret with your full bombload.
Did the guy who designed G6 also talked to the same genius who recommended fitting the Yorktowns with 8-inch guns?
@@ph89787 The "through-deck cruisers" was a looney fad of the early 1930s.
@@ph89787 "the same genius who recommended fitting the Yorktowns with 8-inch guns?"
You mean like how Lexington and Saratoga each had eight 8-inch guns until 1942?
Guns that later has been proven in simulations, if they fired across the flightdeck, would have cracked it.
Even a slight chance that doing so could have caused them to sink through indirect damage.
Just because the navy bureau of construction and repair didn't believe aircraft were CAPABLE of being enough firepower for a capital ship.
And it's not like others weren't looking at similar insanities...
@@DIREWOLFx75 There was a lot of muddled thinking back then
@@gregorywright4918 Wasn’t the “70s HMS Invincible officially described as a “through-deck Cruiser” until the Falklands War, when that designation was quietly dropped and she became an Aircraft Carrier for PR purposes?
( 6:09 ) I am so glad that you mentioned the USS Arizona and USS Utah here! As both sit in Pearl Harbor as memorials, both are available on a tour, or to see. USS Utah started life as a Dreadnought Battleship, her and her sister in the Florida class - USS Florida were the first heavy ships to arrive at Veracruz during U S intervention in the Mexican revolution. USS Utah would go on to escort allied shipping during The Great War, before eventually being "retired" (by terms of the London Naval Treaty in 1931) and converted into a target and anti aircraft artillery training ship (AG-16). Utah was hit on December 7 and rolled over near Ford Island, where some salvage was attempted. In contrast to the huge causalities on Arizona, Utah lost 58 men that day (in part because she had less crew, in part because she suffered only two torpedo hits near land). She remains there today with her own color guard (her small memorial building and wreck is only accessible through the Navy / Marine base, but can be seen from the tour boats to Arizona and from around the harbor. The ship's bell is at the University of Utah).
I've been waiting for this one - excellent.
I love these Saturdays treats whatever comes up but this is a little special.
wish this was an hour long
Agreed
Me too
Don't encourage him! Drach is already a legend for keeping us spellbound 3 or 4 hours at a stretch!
Nah he wont do it unless its an american or brit ship sadly
Current;y reading Shattered Sword, so this guide was right on time.
Always read Sorry at first glance instead than Soryu.... So for me it was a doomed ships as English is not even my mother language. Nice video as always. Thank you for the work and passion Drachinifel!
It does help to properly spell the names out without ignoring the long vowels, so Sôryû or Souryuu. The macrons look fancier, but they're also exactly why we end up with so many of us English/etc speakers being confused by them, not knowing how or being too lazy to put them in, and just ignoring them (which is why I always prefer the extra-letter setup).
Japanese Doctrine had their Carriers Operating in 2 ship Carrier Divisions.
Here - their doctrine can be described as _"One ship - with two hulls"_ .
The Carrier Division would launch a single strike made up of planes from both ships.
One Carrier would launch Dive Bombers and a few Fighters.
The other Carrier would launch Torpedo Bombers and a few Fighters.
This allowed them to get off a balanced Strike Group very quickly.
Then - they would get off a Second Strike Group - with both ships launching the Dive Bombers and Torpedo Bombers they had not included in the first Strike Group.
Now - one of the problems with this - was that these two ships were organizationally tied to each other. Thus - when Shokaku was heavily damaged at Coral Sea and Zuikaku lost much of it's Air Group - both ships went back to Japan and neither was a Midway.
In Contrast when Yorktown was heavily damaged and it's air group shot up - they managed to fix it well enough to operate in a few days - and gave it Saratoga's Air Group - and it _was_ at Midway.
This is a very accurate illustration of Japanese Thinking. They come up with a very clever way of doing things - but - when that won't work because things have changed - their response is less than ideal.
The Japanese Carrier Divisions that made up _Kido Butai_ were
Kaga & Akagi
Hiryu & Soryu
Shokaku & Zuikaku
By combining all six of their Fleet Carriers - with over 400 aircraft - they just waltzed about the Pacific Stomping On People.
The problem was that, trying to do to much at the same time, they didn't keep it together.
If they had had six carriers at both Coral Sea and Midway - each would have been a different battle.
.
SUPPOSE SUPPOSE I THINK SHOULDA WOULDA COULDOFA ETC
Very good summary. Note that at the Indian Ocean, the Akagi was alone - the Kaga scraped a reef in February and had to go back to Japan for dry-docking. She would not have been ready for Coral Sea. In any case, the other three older carriers were in dire need of refit, so they went back to Japan and left the new Sho&Zui (commissioned fall of '41) to handle Coral Sea. Halsey had just hit Japan with the Doolittle raid in April, so they estimated that no carriers were then in the south Pacific.
Very good observation and points!
Warspite kicking a few Japanese carriers teeth in is some Alt history I'd like to hear about. Her plot armor would overcome anything the Japanese could throw at her.
This is interesting, also I have a suggestion for a ship from the Royal Thai navy, the Thonburi class ship.
I really enjoy your episodes.
Hey, I stayed up so late drinking I got to see the new video right as it came out. Nice.
Knew this video was going to get a lot of hits in short order 😁. Thanks Drach as always.
Otro héroe....gran trabajo...muy buenos los mapas y representado el movimiento de las tropas
Strapping airships to a carrier to keep it upright... that's an image.
You mentioned the East India Raid here, do you have any plans to cover that in a longer, dedicated video?
I do love your introduction to your films
Enjoyed the video.,thanks.
Warspite: if I only knew those two were nearby...
Belli dura despicio!
The only question I have is would warspite be able to sink them. Now the answer to that is obviously yes. However, she could sneak up to them at night. However during the engagement carrier division 2 could and might be able to just drop the gear and quite literally disappear.
Although I'm not entirely sure about that. Could be something fun to speculate.
@@Caktusdud. I think it was a pipe dream. With over 10knot difference in speed, Warspite would have literally had to ambush them and unless there was a critical hit on propulsions they would have wiggled their tails at her as they sailed over the horizon.
@@korbell1089 And hence why Swordfish from Formidable and Indomitable are needed. Speaking of which, does anyone think of if Sommerville engaged CarDiv 2 in the Indian Ocean. That there would be a Pirates of the Caribbean style gun battle between the 4 carriers.
@@korbell1089 Somerville had two carriers available with night-time operations capability. The Japanese had... questionable AA even during the day, let alone at night. It wasn't a pipe dream at all. The Japanese ships get dropped by radar equipped Swordfish and Warspite goes in to finish them off.
@@Caktusdud. Japanese had superior night optics, but radar gave Brits even better advantage. I assume contact made at 10k yards or so by very surprised IJN while Brits had already guns aimed. Matapan 2.0
Having watched this video and others about Kaga and Akagi, I now know where the Gamilons in Space Battleship Yamato got the idea (so to speak) not just for the multi-level flight decks on their carriers, but also for putting big guns on said carriers. I also find it ironic that ideas from the Imperial Japanese Navy should show up on bad guy ships for Space Yamato to blow away.
A very concise overview. Might like to have seen a few more words on this one.
Great job thank you 👍
Hiryuu‘s island is just unique.
Damn near EVERY island in the IJN is unique... they never made two carriers completely identical.
I think the Akagi had a port-side island as well, for similar reasons.
@@gregorywright4918 For sure.
These two carriers were mighty fast and excellent warships. Had they not sucumbed at Midway they would have caused plenty of trouble for the Allies at Guadacanal.
They were fast, but they were fragile - like the Wasp and Ranger. Guadalcanal was a slogging match, they probably would have gotten hit as the USN got better, but not been able to take it like Shokaku.
Great video...👍
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Trying to watch all of Drach's excellent videos is like (or harder) than trying to listen to every Grateful dead show. Plus The Other Ones and Dead and Company. Huge fun nevertheless.
Thank you!
It would be interesting to have your views on the thinking behind the left/right position of the deck superstructures and on what consequences this arrangement had in practice.
I seem to recall hearing somewhere (this channel, perhaps) that at one point Japanese carrier doctrine was to operate the carriers in pairs abreast, with the islands outboard of the two flightdecks... It had been abandoned by the time they built Shokaku and Zuikaku...
Unless faced with an immediate threat at close proximity, the instinctive muscle reaction among humans is to pull rather than push. Since the majority of people are right handed, this means that in a sudden crisis most pilots will apply left stick rather than right stick.
This is why fighter pilots will usually break left rather than right, when an enemy suddenly gets on their tail.
It is also why carrier islands are built on the starboard side, since a sudden emergency while landing makes pilots tend to automatically pull to the left.
@@mikearmstrong8483 I believe this is one of the things that the Japanese discovered. Certainly all their subsequent carriers had their islands on the starboard side...
@@mikearmstrong8483 Single engine propeller planes tend to turn opposite the direction of propeller rotation. American planes almost always turn to the left because that's the standard way our engines and props are built. (Watch the movie Devotion for a horrifying glimpse of a Corsair making an uncontrolled left turn at low speed.) I don't know off hand which way Japanese planes tended to turn. I'm guessing they also went left, but I can't confirm that.
@@crazypetec-130fe7
Good point. Torque. That's why it was quicker to turn a Sopwith Camel 270 degrees to the left than it was to turn 90 degrees to the right. However, the impulse to go left has lasted into the jet age and has been a factor in jet combat and carrier landings, so torque isn't entirely the answer.
Thanks!
One other thing the 2 carriers did was after Pearl Harbor, they made a short detour and launched a drive by attack on Wake Island (mentioned in Ian Toll's book on the early Pacific war IIRC). This was a factor (not the only one) in Saratoga being ordered to abort the relief mission as no one knew the carriers hadn't stuck around.
What a treat, a nice helping of Kido Butai for breakfast..
Oh Hiryu are!
Dad jokes R-Us...
You know what you did, now say Soryu
Hey! Don't think I didn't Hiryu say that!
Their battle standard was impressive. Gotta give them that.
Ah yes, the Soryu. Largely famous for its later namesake but.. I've been waiting for this one - excellent..
7:33 .... as the US carrier pilots used to say, "If you want to let air in, drop bombs; if you want to let water in, use torpedoes!"
Very true, and when faced by the Yamatos they dragged out the torpedoes, but most other work (especially anti-carrier) was left to the dive bombers. It was much harder to hit a dive bomber with AA compared to a torpedo bomber, and dropping torpedoes required a low, slow, and straight flight path. Between half and 2/3 of all sinkings were by torpedo.
@@gregorywright4918 ... even against the Yamatos, they sent the dive bombers and fighters in first to disrupt the Yamato's AAA, thus making it comparably safer for the Avengers to make their low-and-slow approaches.
Interesting. Cruiser/carrier hybrids were a thing way back in the 20's and 30's with the USA. To this day there seems to be an obsession with this hybrid. Though today it tends to be Iowa-class updates where the aft end is converted to a flight deck...
Those G6 and G8 drawings look like something I'd have drawn in middle school when I was bored XD
A deadly duo indeed for their service career to meet their pyrrhic end together
But the USA didn't sink them.
Much like any ship being scuttled.
@@myparceltape1169 Whenever an enemy does such damage to a ship as to render it unusable, unsafe and/or unsalvageable and leaves one with no choice but to scuttle their own ship, for all intents and purposes - the enemy sank that ship.
@@myparceltape1169 Think it qualified as mission-kill at the least....🤔
@@scottgiles7546 At least.
My comment was what I thought of the Bismark "scuttling" and I wondered if this would be compared.
Wonder what "Great Green Dragon" is in Japanese, since they were using Dragon names. (For you Tolkien fans out there.)
Are there any photos of the 1923 earthquake damaged japanese rumps available in books or net?
Soryu have decided to make a video about this carrier after all.
I hadn't realized how small and lightly built these two were. Having such notoriety, I just assumed they were comparable to the Akagi and Kaga. Really just a couple of Rangers.
@@rohanthandi4903Any ship can hit 34 knots going down hill....
Want to read a Japanese pilot's account of what it was like to fly from Soryu (and to jump off it when it sank)? Do a search for 'The Miraculous Torpedo Squadron', the autobiography of Juzo Mori.
Drachinifel, I, and perhaps others would appreciate a video on the details and ramifications of the various post-WW1 naval treaties, including how the treaties were enforced and 2:41 managed by the signees. I keep thinking to myself, what was stopping any of the powers just going along with terms with a wink and a nudge, but completely ignoring the terms? Was there oversight, and if so, how was it enforced? How did one country know what tonnage any other country was truly building? Thanks, in advance. M from Oz.
Ignore the time stamp, it was a typo error that I missed when I submitted my comment.
I remember from a dry dock (No idea which, sorry!) that countries would send out “investigators” that could measure displacement by lengthy and depth in the water. Nations only had so many ports, so counting ships with X displacement wasn’t difficult, even when measuring wasn’t necessary exact. Additionally, guns of certain calibers were evident even when not viewed up close, so the biggest way of cheating was by ignoring displacement limits. As mentioned, there were systems for measuring this.
Some signatories has so much to gain from the Treaties (until they were operating) that evidently a somehow blind eye was directed at the most obvious violations, that could deceive politicians or the general public but for sure could not trick professional Navy officers. Some slack was evidently applied, also even the most 'treaty-complying' Navies had some little dust under the carpet or did not want to re-open sensitive arguments over certain metrics (like standard displacement) that were favourable for ocean-going Navies.
Drach did one video on the WNT, with some commentary on "enforcement" and followups. At the time (1921), the politicians were enamored with the "Great War To End War" idea, along with the idea that it was the naval arms race that caused the Great War. The UK was drifting towards serious pacifism among certain influential groups, and finances were tight at a time that all the navies wanted to build build post-war ships embodying all the "Lessons of Jutland". So the national politicians were the first tier of "enforcement", as they reined in the building proposals of their own navies, often by the power of the purse. The two top-tier navies, the UK and US, were democracies that held parliamentary debates over navy budgets, so not much was able to be kept secret about ship plans. But the treaties did not have an enforcement mechanism besides public exposure, and when they collapsed in the mid-30s it was not about cheating but about Japan's wanting to get a jump on everyone else by building the Yamatos.
Ah yes, the Soryu. Largely famous for its later namesake but.
Ah yes the JMSDF submarines. Which is kinda evil if you think about it.
@@ph89787 Like JS Soryu's sister JS Unryu?
Then of course, there's JS Kaga and I wouldn't put it past the JMSDF to commission the Amagi-class guided-missile cruisers Amagi and Akagi.
...Well, her sorta namesake. Fascinating that despite operating in the same theatre, the Langley and the Soryu never seem to have been involved in the same battle despite being aircraft carriers...
JMSDF names its submarines after animals，so they will not name surface combat vessles after animals now.
@@Eboreg2 Akagi name is taken by a coast guard patrol boat.
th-cam.com/video/-SU9WmI4G2c/w-d-xo.html
The way he pronounced "Papier-mâché" gave me a chuckle.
excellent video...enough flattery, keep it up!
7:50 damn that was brutal
Considering IJN naming conventions you’d think the admiralty was infatuated with Dungeons & Dragons.
I find it a bit odd that you would do the Soryu and Hiryu after doing one about their near sisters, the Unryu class. No matter, informative as always.
Is it just a misleading perspectin the photo, or did Soryu's flight deck slope slightly down towards the bow?
OK, so since these were named after dragons, could we call New Jersey "Kokuryu"?
I like this actually lol
@@issacfoster1113 Let's make it a thing! Or, as JLP would put it: "Make it so!" 😄
Did you mean to suggest Kuroryu?
@@Squiddhartha Depends on how big the New Jersey is/was? 😉
@@SimonJM well, pretty darn big, but her nickname is "Black Dragon," so...
I am wondering if Soryu's light armor was a contributing factor to her loss. One of the three 1000 lb bomb hits penetrated the upper hanger (and potentially the lower hanger) and detonated deep within the ship. She was gripped by a thunderous explosion (likely due to the armament of her fully armed and fueled strike aircraft exploding) a few short minutes later and abandon ship was issued.
Kaga went up the same way, and she was more fully armored. The main cause was the planes and ammo in the hangars.
You stack 50 planes in the hangers with over 100 bombs and torpedoes scattered around them that are fully fueled and armed with their complete gun load out also. Then throw about 700 to 1500 pounds of high explosives going off in that mixture. It's not going to be pretty for the ship.
Both ships got plastered and went up in flames quickly but Soryu's lighter construction contributed to one of the bombs that hit her penetrating to the lower hanger deck; all the bombs that hit Kaga stayed in the upper hanger deck. Soryu immediately lost all power and came to a stop while Kaga, despite just as much damage (if not more) than Soryu continued steaming at reduced speed for some time. Yes, bombs exploding in the hanger deck amongst munitions, planes & fuel greatly contributed to their damage, but I don't think Kaga was as structurally compromised as Soryu was from the bomb blasts.
Yay the fluffy dragons!
I wonder how that type of split fore deck structure would have held up in Typhoon Cobra?
Wows should watch more your video
After _Hiryu_ was hit it is rumored that Adm. Nagumo remarked "there seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today," to RAdm. Kusaka.
🤣🤣🤣
Lol
Ummm... that's not the quote at all... after Hiryu was hit, Adm Nagumo told RAdm Kusaka "Nothing is over until we decide it is... was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!".
Naval design in the early 20th century was a mad, expensive dash toward instant obsolescence.
For a long time I have always thought that the Carrier Soryu was named after the quintessential Japanese seasoning -- Soy Sauce.
It does sound like it... Soryu (蒼龍) vs Shoyu (醤油).
Hi Drach, could I please ask you to increase the audio volume on your recordings? The levels are quite low compared to most other youtube videos and i keep having to turn up the volume on my phone/tv/computer only to turn it down again for the ads or the next video unless I want to be deafened
That's a thing I remember from early commercial TV adverts. Whatever the programme the ads were Loud bu comparison.
The authorities eventually stepped in and limited the volume of the ads compared to the programme.
Possibly fewer people left the room to make tea after that because the ad companies had to try and make more interesting ads. 😊
ps. I can turn down the volume on my phone by putting my thumb over the little speaker.
I've been increasing the volume over the past few months to the point the audio is painfully loud in editing without turning my speakers down to minimal. Not sure what else I can do? 😞
I think it's time for you to get A miracle ear?
@@DrachinifelI think we have a generation that needs to start getting hearing aids?
@@Drachinifel Thanks, hm, fair enough, weird though, because yours is the lowest volume channel i watch by far.
RIP Top G Admiral Yamaguchi
Even after the devastation of the dive bomber attack, Hiryu's power plant and sterring were both functioning. A determined crew could have sailed her back to Truk lagoon.
Where do you find information about proposed Japanese carriers? I can never find anything (valid) despite knowing the language. Hope you read this :)
Drach isn’t actually Human, he is a Genius loci with knowledge of all things made of wood or metal that float
There's a really good article in Warship 2022 about their origins :)
@Drachinifel can you expand on why the switch on the island from Port to starboard please?
@@frankbodenschatz173I think that the idea was that the pair could operate by steaming in parallel without any overlap in their flight circuits. The trouble with this idea was that pilots naturally want to circle to the left and Hiryu with the island to port forced it's pilots to fly an unnatural circuit.
Sorry, but I can't quote you any source material but it is something that I might have picked up over years of reading and documentaries, I'm 58.
Mark from Melbourne Australia
Interesting to hear that you 'know the language'.
Your ability to translate is a valuable skill.
Have you reviewed HMS Rodney?
6:50 I don‘t get it. A rapidly launched Zero prevented Adm. Somerville from learning where the carriers were? Huh?
Somerville's force had two scout planes that spotted the Japanese carriers. It sounds like the CAP wasn't aloft or in position to intercept, but a rapid fighter launch shot one down and drove the other off. Unfortunately, the survivor took damage to the radio (IIRC) so Somerville never received a sighting report. As I recall there have been drydock questions about Operation C that have covered this.
Yep, the Albacore that survived had its radio shot out so it could only inform Somerville when it got back to its carrier hours later
@@kemarisite Thanks, also to Drach.
Looks like I don‘t memorise the entire Drydock content. 🤯
Did the Japanese themselves regard these two ships as being in the same or distinct?
For what it's worth, Japanese wikipedia lists them as separate classes (native-language wiki is very handy for this sort of thing).
On a tangent, it's also worth noting that the Shouhou is the nameship of her class per Japan (which one would think is the only judgment that matters) not Zuihou. In an interesting reversal of the Souryuu/Hiryuu case, both Shinyou and Kaiyou seem to be considered part of the Taiyou-class, despite not being converted from the same type of ship as the original three.
@@BleedingUranium Good point, but 'who' in Japanese regarded these two ships being in separate classes? Wikipedia, the Japanese people or the IJN archives?
@@BuzbyWuzby As I said, it's handy for a quick reference, and should generally get you in a closer ballpark (as sooo many English sources, even "actual" ones, screw foreign stuff up, Japanese and Italian especially it seems).
Question. Could the Japanese repaire both carriers after Midway?? Or was the damage far to extensive?
Drach leaves a pinned comment for questions, just so ya know
They were gutted hulks
@AbeBSea
It would figure. Getting hit by several 1000 lb bombs along with other issues. But it would be interesting (what if ) scenario if they had better Firefighting and damage repair capabilities.
@@animal16365 If they had better firefighting and damage control then they wouldn't have been the IJN of WW2. Their focus was on offense with little thought given to defense. As mentioned in the video, the IJN was more concerned with packing as much offense into their ships as possible, stability be damned, until they lost a few ships to storm damage. None of the IJN carriers lost at Midway were hit by a torpedo, so their watertight integrity below the waterline was intact. They were burned out hulks with such extensive interior damage that trying to tow them back to port for repairs would just tie up shipyard space. Once a ship has suffered such catastrophic fires it is easier to just build a new ship.
If it were possible to repair them, it would have required at least two other ships to tow them back to a repair base across most of the Pacfic at single digit knot speeds. The risk was not worth the potential good.
So..........airships holding up the ship...........for no reason does anyone know a good airship retailer......for no particular reason?
Gotta ask, why move the island on the Hiryu to the port side?
The main rationale was that the downward-curving exhaust stacks were in the middle on the starboard side, and they wanted the island in the middle to balance ship control and aircraft movements on deck. Shortly afterwards they got some pilot feedback from the rebuild of the Akagi and found air current eddies and the tendency of single-propeller aircraft to torque to port meant that the starboard was a better place for it.
The intention was so that they could operate together and the planes would be able to launch and recover without interfering with the other air group.
Nice carriers ya got there, Japan. Be a shame if anything happened to them.
- Douglas Aircraft
Climb Mount Niitaka
I wish you'd fix the volume of the lead-in/out parts in relation to the actual presentation
I think those parts are pre-recorded, just added to the new content each time.
The Hiryu class are nice looking ships. Too bad they were so fragile. In effect, they were eggshells armed with hammers. Of course, no carrier could survive the punishment they took at Midway.
I guess IJN Yubari is on hold :/
Concerning Midway: Revenge is a Dish Best Served Cold
I thought Japanese carrier doctrine was that carriers didn't carry scout aircraft.
I like happy endings.
The Lord Emperor Drach!
Almost blundering into the teeth of Warspite... ah~ that nearly was a moment for the ages 😂 .
Would've also meant the Grand Old Lady would have sunk one of almost every type of warship... *and* would've been the only Battleship to sink two Fleet Carriers 😁 .
Two very nice name for cats. Ask Mr Jonathan Parshall.
Kitty Butai
Black Dragon?
The loss of four carriers at Midway didn't hurt Japan nearly as much as losing all those trained carrier pilots.
That was one of the myths Parshall & Tully's Shattered Sword busted. Most of the pilots were saved, since they were not in their planes on the hangar decks yet. The big losses happened during the Solomons campaign, flying max-range missions down the Slot from bases at Rabaul that did not have the best maintenance crews.
@@gregorywright4918 A quote from "A Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1941-1945, by Paul S Dull; a book that drew data from IJN official records. "The Japanese losses (at Midway) were great: about 2,200 crewmen lost there lives, as did most of the crack pilots of the 234 planes lost (and Japan was producing few will-trained replacements)"
@@MarchHare59I've read Dull, but realize that his book was originally written in the late 70s, when Fuchida was still considered a reputable authority in the US. I don't know if it was revised in the 2000s, but Shattered Sword dug deep into squadron and deck logs and discovered some issues with the conventional wisdom. I'm pretty sure they discovered that most of the planes that were "lost" were on the hangar decks of the bombed carriers, and the pilots had not manned their planes yet. I'll dig out my copy and see if I can find that part. If not, it might have been Lundstoms The First Team.
@@gregorywright4918 My copy is from 1978 so point taken. I will definitely look for a copy of Broken Sword. I have a pretty good library and it sounds like a worthwhile addition. I recently read "Japanese Destroyer Captain" by Tameichi Hara and I've been looking around for another good book. (If you haven't read it, I recommend it.) I do agree that many Japanese pilots did survive Midway but they lost a lot of pilots too. When the USN dive bombers hit, the planes on deck were mostly dive bombers so the fighter pilots didn't suffer as many casualties, plus the combat air patrol had a better than average chance for survival since most of the Japanese destroyers were stopped to pick up survivors from the burning carriers and the water must have been relatively calm for ditching since Ens. Gay (USN) survived being in the water. Anyway, thanks for the tip. :)
I don’t know. Strapping large hydrogen filled balloons to a large ship is such a cool idea. I think that the idea should have flown.
"Sir, Someone from a 'S.H.I.E. L.D.' is on Line Two"
One wonders is anybody though of using freighters with a launch catapult only (no landing capability), and a hold full of spare aircraft. In short, a supply of spare aircraft to replace losses on the run. If your small aircraft carrier with 36 planes looses 10, that hurts. But if your freighter can launch some replacement planes that can land and then become ships complement, would boost the utility of a small fast carrier.
Britan had some planes for escort from convoy that were one way. Single use.
It was the loss of pilots that really hurt. A few spare planes was enough.
@@tomhath8413 Yep. But i figured that the Japanese were as good at rescuing pilots as the Americans were. I have no data on that, i just figured that they'd be smart enough to prioritize that.
In WW2 the Brits developed CAM (catapult armed merchants) ships, which just had one plane on a catapult, and MAC (merchant aircraft carrier) ships which had a flight deck built over the merchant hull. Once enough CVEs were built they discontinued both programs. The IJN had few CVEs, although the IJA had a couple to ferry planes overseas.
@@jeromethiel4323 About rescuing pilots - the IJN was not very good at that, while the USN started off weak but got very good at it as time went on. Small floatplanes, large flying boats, and subs all contributed. In the Solomons, friendly natives and coastwatchers helped a lot too.
got bonked in the biggest naval trap ever
Blue Dragon, Flying Dragon, why not FLAMING DRAGON? It has Tugg Speedman performing Simple Jack as crew entertainment.
Tough ships, very useful, betrayed by overly complex mission plans. Support of the carriers was in inadequate. If you compare the fleet that attacked Pearl Harbor, the numbers and types other than carriers, was more balanced and powerful.
That was the original plan. Coral Sea knocked a couple of carriers out of service. Also, Midway was supposed to be an ambush so the invasion force was kept separate from the carriers.
蒼龍飛龍
Just wait until World of Warships hears about plan G6.
Why isn't this 30mins long?!?
5 minute (ish) guides. Wednesday is for the longer stuff :)
@@Drachinifel I know that. Just saying that I expected a video on these two would be longer 😃 welp next time I guess.
That's why "Shattered Sword" and "Incredible Victory" exist, for the extra content of Midway (pre-battle, per "Incredible Victory", some pilots on the Japanese carriers were playing "Kirameku Seiza" on the record player, and US carrier pilots were, shall we say, "In the Mood"?)
@@tcpratt1660 I thought "Shattered Sword" existed to correct Fuchida's input to "Incredible Victory" and the myth of the fully loaded IJN flight decks...
hi drach
Google translates your comment from "hi drach" into "there will be"
Renault FT17 ?
@@ultimatefattie9022automatic subtitles are great too, sometimes I watch videos twice, the second time just to have a good laugh with the subtitles 🤣
I am mildly disappointed that you didn't title the video _"Soryu_ and _Hiryu:_ Chasing the Dragon".
isn't that term a ephamism for smoking opium???
@@thatsme9875 It is now.