@@hazchemel he was an air gunner during battle stations ,and also said ,that after bri ginger that ship down they shut off engines off and survived the depth charges, he also stated that the sub was leaking in several places.
I was born December 1944 so the war was almost over but I joined the navy a couple of years after highschool and as it turned out on December 31, 1992 I retired from the navy after 22 plus years of active and reserve duty. Always love learning about what actually happened back during that war. All of my entire active duty service was related to the cold war between US and the Soviet threat. Never made it to Viet Nam and so don't really know that much about that conflict. I have played golf several times with a Guadalcanal veteran who just turned 100 this past December and he is a dear man. A hero in my view.
They lost many, many destroyers and cruisers in the Solomon Islands campaign. Those losses were never recovered and contributed greatly to the IJN’s anti submarine warfare problems
@@DaveW871 Depends on how many available drydocks they had to build destroyers in, because the amount of materials is irrelevant without having places to build ships in.
very well done. I love the fact you narrated that yourself. no robo crap. Very impressed. been studying WWII for ~35 years. this is easily one of the better videos.
Soon to be follow nearby with the dreadnaught battleship USS Texas. After spending about a year and a half in dry dock, Texas was re-floated this week but with another year of restoration before she opens to the public again.
Been by it but have not gone in. I went inside a WWII Sub at the Port of Corpus Christi in about 1951. I remember how high we had to step to get over through the doors or hatches between compartments. I was only about 12 years old.
When faced with torpedoes.." Let us be clear... Faced with torpedoes, which by 1944 finally worked. A solution late in 1943 to a problem that cost hundreds of submariner lives.
The Shokaku class were the IJN's best carrier class, and until Essex class carriers came into service, possibly the best carrier class in the Pacific war. I'd put the USN's Yorktown class as better, due to somewhat better damage control capability, but it is arguable. In the Battle of the Philippine Sea, most IJN carriers' pilots were inadequately trained and faced a mix of experienced USN pilots and USN pilots from a training system that worked well (quality and quantity). The IJN had lost too many experienced pilots and destroyers in the fights in the Solomons. Philippine Sea started the reckoning for the IJN's inability to replace those losses.
Agreed. I think if the Japanese naval aircraft folded their wings to the same level that the US planes. (TBF, F6F for example) they could have nearly double the aircraft numbers. Maybe. That or half the hanger space. I say this becuase the yortowns have 1 hanger and the flight deck so Ive heard, vs the 2 that the shokaku's have. Yet they carry similar numbers of aircraft. Personally I think the storage of the american planes is the bigger reason. Folding them wings.
Exactly. You know your history! The fact you bring up, combined with the use of raw petroleum in the ships at that point in the war, basically guaranteed a military disaster like the Japanese faced that day.
I read in the instruction sheet of Tamiya's 1/700 Zuikaku that it apparently had been given a bulbus bow, like Yamato, however since it is a waterline model, it doesn't provide the full hull. Once again, great as usual. Take care, and all the best.
I was reading H. P. Willmott's Battleship Designs of 20th Century and, in the first section, he's discussing the bulbuous bow of 1890-1910 battleships. Those were ramming aids because, in those years - following 1500 years of battleship needs to ram (apparently, their missile and 16-inch guns weren't used in 814ad's battles!!), standard design included bulbous bows to ram. Still. Even the HMS Dreadnought had a raked-forward bow design as well, for that ramming purpose.
Nice summation. The excess crew casualties is puzzling. The writing was on the wall and it seems like there was not a lot of haste in abandoning ship. Rescue ships were immediately available, the weather wasn’t an issue, and rescuers were not pressed by enemy attack. Hat’s off to the USN Submarine service. After a rough start, they crippled Japan’s economy and did serious damage to her naval forces. I don’t think any other national Submariners had that kind of record.
The high death toll came because _Shokaku_ sank faster than anticipated. Before the forward explosion, it was assumed that _Shokaku_ was going to take a while to sink. So the surviving crew was ordered to assemble on the aft part of the flight deck for a fairly leisurely roll call. While this roll call was taking place, the forward explosion occurred, and now _Shokaku_ had only a few minutes left above water. The ship lurched forward and downward suddenly, and the stern rose into the air. The crew having roll call were desperately trying to find anything to grab onto so they wouldn't tumble forward into the open aft elevator pit and the inferno that was the hanger decks. Many fell into that pit and died from the fall or the flames. It was a horrific scene according to surviving witnesses.
Escorting merchant vessels wasn't high on the IJN list. In contrast to the UK/Commonwealth strategy and tactics. Its importance was no doubt helped by WW1 experiences. A lady at my first job in the 60s, always ordered lots of paper, as she had learnt from the WW1 sub blockade !
The US submarine fleet concentrated on Japanese oil tankers running between Malaysian oil fields and Japan, so in the end the IJN ended up bottled up in port for lack of fuel.@@paulsanderson9586
I have read where hundreds of sailors had gathered on the aft flight deck awaiting an orderly evacuation when the Shokaku suddenly and sharply tilted up stern-first. This caused the men to lose footing and slide forward and fall into the collapsed rear elevator which was by then an inferno. A horrible end. To the producer: Excellent presentation. BTW, "forecastle" is often pronounced "FOC-sul."
Very nice and informative video. One interesting fact: both at Coral Sea and Santa Cruz carrier battles, the torpedo bombers that crippled USS Lexington and USS Hornet were from the Shokaku "air group"
The pics of Cpt Matsubara shows him in what appears to be an IJA uniform. Usually pics have naval officers in either the dark blue or white tropical uniforms. I assume they had a drab uniform similar to army as well
The IJN was out of pilots and aircrews after this battle. Zuikaku was used as a decoy at Leyte Gulf to draw Halsey away from defending the amphibious landing and he fell for it.
Crosser, I have a request for a video that I'd like you to consider producing. I'm asking that you produce a video on the sinking of the Japanese Destroyer Miyuki after it's collision with the destroyer Inazuma in June of 1934. I've never been able to find any details behind this. In fact, I've never even been able to discover the captain's name or even whether the ship rammed Inazuma or was rammed by her. Whether you produce it or not, your channel remains the gold standard on the Imperial Navy. Well done...
True. "The Crane Sisters"...had only one high pressure water pump for fire fighting. The Essex class had 3 and asbestos curtains on hangar deck. Correct me, but I believe they had bucket brigades going as she was sinking.
This is a good video. A suggestion for future ones: Keep the verb tense consistent. Switching back and forth between past and present tense is distracting. This is a good video.
It was a very important event in the war for the US as was the sinking of the rest of their carriers that were at Midway & other engagements including The Philippine Sea but i think the loss of The Yamato was worse for Japan at Wars end & with all on board & the time & manpower to build her it was one hell of loss . For us it was one of the major turning points in the War.
Sinking of Shokaku meant little to Japan--because Japan's naval air arm had been almost totally destroyed, her carriers had almost no planes aboard, so hokaku and other carriers in the flotilla were used as mere bait to draw Halsey north and away from San Bernadino Strait, where the colossal Center Force was to break through and destroy the Leyte landings. In this, Ozawa succeeded, an alsey destroyed most of the flotilla. That cleared the way for the mighty Center Force--but, in the greates battle in USN history, it was beaten back by 3 USN destroyers, 3 Destroyer Escorts and a handful of woolworth carriers. Read James Hornfischer's masterpiece, Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, and you will learn what true heroism is.
Wrong battle. You are talking about a battle that happened several months after the one Shokaku was sunk in. This is not Leyte gulf, this is the Philippine sea.
Very good! But would have appreciated simply tactical maps (graphics) showing the positions and distances between the various different Japanese and U.S. ships mentioned as they converged and exchanged fire. Would have helped me better visualize the battle.
Glass cannon describes a normal Japanese carrier. They had the worst damage control systems, sloppy procedures, and training. They just assumed no one would hit them.
@@augustosolari7721 True, Hiryū had good discipline, but overall, leaving loose bombs in the hangers during battles just is not good leaderships. Most importantly, their damage control systems had single point of failures everywhere.
There were certainly design flaws and poor damage control procedures, but Shokaku had an excellent DC crew that saved the ship after serious bomb hits at Coral Sea and at Santa Cruz. In some ways, she was a better carrier than the new Taiho.
Musashi, Shinano and Yamato were greater losses. Edit to add... Ironically, Shokaku was lost the same way USS Wasp (CV-7) was on 15 September 1942. Each ship took three torpedoes, and burned for hours before sinking.
If the IJN trained new pilots and rotated veteran pilots, their carrier force would have remained on-par with the US. Instead, they restricted the training of new pilots, and continued sending all their experienced pilots to the front-lines until death.
This is why you have redundant dc and fire fighting systems and you train your whole crew in DC and firefighting. Even so the ships design was its Achilles heel, outboard is not a good place for avgas and magazines.
Japanese Damage controll was their weakest link. It seems that they thought that their Capitol Ships would never take a serious hit and never push for real quality Damage Controll.
There were 2 main issues-damage control crews were specific personnel in the IJN, as opposed to the crew wife training received by USN Personnel. And those that were experienced stayed on the ship they were assigned to until it sunk or they died, unlike the USN practice of rotating officers and men to spread training.
Great vid… confusing.., I can’t side with the Japanese.. knowing what they did to our civilians & boys in the Pacific…, but man they served Japan 100%, and they suffered incredibly
The battle where this happened is indeed the Battle of the Philippines sea.. but American military refer to it as the 'Great Marianas Turkey Shoot' because the losses were so one side on the Japanese side. Japan had not been pulling their experienced pilots off the line during the war to help with training new pilots.. so by 1944 the experience level among the pilots was basically 'they knew how to land and take-off and the other basics'.. but didn't have the requisite leadership on tactics to use against the Americans... That, more than anything, contributed to the incredible loss of life among the Japanese combatants... the sinking of the ships was merely a byproduct of the pilots lack of ability to defend their ships and attack American ships. The other contributing factor was the use of unrefined petroleum in their ships because Japan didn't have enough tankers at that point in the war.. and the naptha present in the unrefined petroleum set up the conditions for the volatile atmospheres that formed after their fuel lines were hit. A prescription for utter disaster. Seemingly innocuous decisions were made that turned that battle into a bloodbath for the Japanese.
SHOKAKU was the most effective Japanese carrier of the war in terms of offensive operations against the U.S. Navy but by June 1944 the Japanese could not embark effective air groups on any of their carriers. Their aircraft types had become obsolete against their counterparts in the U.S. fast carrier task forces and could not make significant penetrations through their shipboard antiaircraft defenses. The Kido Butai, the Japanese Mobile Fleet carrier force, essentially did its damage to the U.S. Navy in 1942. By 1944 they were outclassed and totally outnumbered and the loss of its carriers had become only an inevitable matter of time.
"The loss of Shokaku was significant in a few ways" Yeah, one of my favourite ships of all time an absolute beauty has been sunk. 😭😭. Yeah I really do love the Shokaku class that much. I do have a couple questions though on a more serious note. The first is, in your developing shokaku video you talked about how the torpedo protection was around 53% less effective than what it would havd been had they gone with the live testing. If they did have that level of torpedo protection how much of a difference if any could that have made? The second is, both ships haven't been found. The two sisters are forever apart by what looks to be nearly 2000miles. Will their wrecks ever be discovered?
My father was on that crew that took that ship down. He didn't talk much . But was one of the best fathers in the world my dad
Yeah? I bet he was, may Our Lord keep him close.
@@hazchemel he was an air gunner during battle stations ,and also said ,that after bri ginger that ship down they shut off engines off and survived the depth charges, he also stated that the sub was leaking in several places.
Mine was the other one
Much respect, admiration & gratitude to your father ! God bless and know his service is appreciated. GBjj
I was born December 1944 so the war was almost over but I joined the navy a couple of years after highschool and as it turned out on December 31, 1992 I retired from the navy after 22 plus years of active and reserve duty. Always love learning about what actually happened back during that war. All of my entire active duty service was related to the cold war between US and the Soviet threat. Never made it to Viet Nam and so don't really know that much about that conflict. I have played golf several times with a Guadalcanal veteran who just turned 100 this past December and he is a dear man. A hero in my view.
Well- balanced, matter- of- fact video that gets right to the point. A first- class job...as usual...
Good video. The Cavalla is open to the public in Galveston TX
Great video. I love concise, no-nonsense content like this. The use of scale models was really effective too.
Lack of destroyers cost IJN, weak ASW screen cost 2 fleet carriers. Very interesting vlog, thanks
The issue was more with ASW being the biggest doctrinal weakness of the IJN (by a wide margin) than anything else.
They lost many, many destroyers and cruisers in the Solomon Islands campaign. Those losses were never recovered and contributed greatly to the IJN’s anti submarine warfare problems
The Japanese naval commanders must have wondered how many destroyers could have built from the steel used in the building of the super BB Yamato.
@@DaveW871
Depends on how many available drydocks they had to build destroyers in, because the amount of materials is irrelevant without having places to build ships in.
Yes, Japanese destroyers were designed for fleet actions ,with heavy emphasis on torpedo attacks and much less on anti-sub warfare.
very well done. I love the fact you narrated that yourself. no robo crap. Very impressed. been studying WWII for ~35 years. this is easily one of the better videos.
I've toured the USS Cavalla a couple of times. She is a museum ship in Galveston, Texas.
Wish I known she is there.
Soon to be follow nearby with the dreadnaught battleship USS Texas. After spending about a year and a half in dry dock, Texas was re-floated this week but with another year of restoration before she opens to the public again.
Been by it but have not gone in. I went inside a WWII Sub at the Port of Corpus Christi in about 1951. I remember how high we had to step to get over through the doors or hatches between compartments. I was only about 12 years old.
You might be interested in the old tv show "The Silent Service" on UA-cam. They have an episode on the Cavalla.
@@andrewvelonis5940Thanks. 👍
Moral of the story. Don't start a war with a country you have no hope of defeating!
If only the leaders who started the war would be required to be the first to fight in the war, we would have far fewer wars. We can dream, can't we?
When faced with torpedoes.." Let us be clear...
Faced with torpedoes, which by 1944 finally worked.
A solution late in 1943 to a problem that cost hundreds
of submariner lives.
Yes, the early failure of torpedoes and more importantly, the failure to address the problem was a horror.
The Shokaku class were the IJN's best carrier class, and until Essex class carriers came into service, possibly the best carrier class in the Pacific war. I'd put the USN's Yorktown class as better, due to somewhat better damage control capability, but it is arguable. In the Battle of the Philippine Sea, most IJN carriers' pilots were inadequately trained and faced a mix of experienced USN pilots and USN pilots from a training system that worked well (quality and quantity). The IJN had lost too many experienced pilots and destroyers in the fights in the Solomons. Philippine Sea started the reckoning for the IJN's inability to replace those losses.
Agreed.
I think if the Japanese naval aircraft folded their wings to the same level that the US planes. (TBF, F6F for example) they could have nearly double the aircraft numbers. Maybe.
That or half the hanger space.
I say this becuase the yortowns have 1 hanger and the flight deck so Ive heard, vs the 2 that the shokaku's have. Yet they carry similar numbers of aircraft. Personally I think the storage of the american planes is the bigger reason. Folding them wings.
Exactly. You know your history!
The fact you bring up, combined with the use of raw petroleum in the ships at that point in the war, basically guaranteed a military disaster like the Japanese faced that day.
I read in the instruction sheet of Tamiya's 1/700 Zuikaku that it apparently had been given a bulbus bow, like Yamato, however since it is a waterline model, it doesn't provide the full hull.
Once again, great as usual.
Take care, and all the best.
I was reading H. P. Willmott's Battleship Designs of 20th Century and, in the first section, he's discussing the bulbuous bow of 1890-1910 battleships. Those were ramming aids because, in those years - following 1500 years of battleship needs to ram (apparently, their missile and 16-inch guns weren't used in 814ad's battles!!), standard design included bulbous bows to ram. Still. Even the HMS Dreadnought had a raked-forward bow design as well, for that ramming purpose.
Nice summation.
The excess crew casualties is puzzling. The writing was on the wall and it seems like there was not a lot of haste in abandoning ship.
Rescue ships were immediately available, the weather wasn’t an issue, and rescuers were not pressed by enemy attack.
Hat’s off to the USN Submarine service. After a rough start, they crippled Japan’s economy and did serious damage to her naval forces. I don’t think any other national Submariners had that kind of record.
The high death toll came because _Shokaku_ sank faster than anticipated. Before the forward explosion, it was assumed that _Shokaku_ was going to take a while to sink. So the surviving crew was ordered to assemble on the aft part of the flight deck for a fairly leisurely roll call. While this roll call was taking place, the forward explosion occurred, and now _Shokaku_ had only a few minutes left above water. The ship lurched forward and downward suddenly, and the stern rose into the air. The crew having roll call were desperately trying to find anything to grab onto so they wouldn't tumble forward into the open aft elevator pit and the inferno that was the hanger decks. Many fell into that pit and died from the fall or the flames. It was a horrific scene according to surviving witnesses.
Weird that Japan did very little to counter the threat of submarines
Escorting merchant vessels wasn't high on the IJN list. In contrast to the UK/Commonwealth strategy and tactics. Its importance was no doubt helped by WW1 experiences.
A lady at my first job in the 60s, always ordered lots of paper, as she had learnt from the WW1 sub blockade !
The US submarine fleet concentrated on Japanese oil tankers running between Malaysian oil fields and Japan, so in the end the IJN ended up bottled up in port for lack of fuel.@@paulsanderson9586
I have read where hundreds of sailors had gathered on the aft flight deck awaiting an orderly evacuation when the Shokaku suddenly and sharply tilted up stern-first. This caused the men to lose footing and slide forward and fall into the collapsed rear elevator which was by then an inferno. A horrible end.
To the producer: Excellent presentation. BTW, "forecastle" is often pronounced "FOC-sul."
When word of Shokaku’s sinking got back to Task Force 58. Enterprise’s Crew were celebrating her loss.
Excellent Thankyou
Thanks for your time awesome history needs to be told we should never forget enemy or not these were men and women
Hangar full of Torpedos, Bombs, & Aviation Fuel make for one hell of an explosive cocktail.
Sounds like that was some type of fiery hell.
Very nice and informative video. One interesting fact: both at Coral Sea and Santa Cruz carrier battles, the torpedo bombers that crippled USS Lexington and USS Hornet were from the Shokaku "air group"
The pics of Cpt Matsubara shows him in what appears to be an IJA uniform. Usually pics have naval officers in either the dark blue or white tropical uniforms. I assume they had a drab uniform similar to army as well
And without her Sister Zuikaku's luck fades away
All they had.
US Aircraft Carrier: Stand proud, Zuikaku. You were strong.
The luck was long gone before this
The IJN was out of pilots and aircrews after this battle. Zuikaku was used as a decoy at Leyte Gulf to draw Halsey away from defending the amphibious landing and he fell for it.
Remember the Arizona.
Battle of Midway was fought June 4-7 1942
gorgeous model.
Crosser, I have a request for a video that I'd like you to consider producing. I'm asking that you produce a video on the sinking of the Japanese Destroyer Miyuki after it's collision with the destroyer Inazuma in June of 1934. I've never been able to find any details behind this. In fact, I've never even been able to discover the captain's name or even whether the ship rammed Inazuma or was rammed by her. Whether you produce it or not, your channel remains the gold standard on the Imperial Navy. Well done...
I took a screenshot of your comment and I will look into what I have on it.
Thank you.
Very informative and straightforward. Great work
Outstanding video!
this Video was a breath of fresh air, great job
and when TOJO got the news, he put down a whole bottle of sake.
Thanks for the video.
Thanks for the history lesson. Well done, sir.
Love the model! Super cool!
Their biggest loss was at pearl.
We are not defeated by sinking a ship,we just get pissed off and now the consequences.
Excellent video ....very well done..
The use of the model was very helpful. 👍🏼
Agreed. Very nice touch indeed!
Very well done, many thanks.
The "Big Bertha's" of the IJN Carriers...
Wow ,great narration and information.
True. "The Crane Sisters"...had only one high pressure water pump for fire fighting. The Essex class had 3 and asbestos curtains on hangar deck. Correct me, but I believe they had bucket brigades going as she was sinking.
This is a good video. A suggestion for future ones: Keep the verb tense consistent. Switching back and forth between past and present tense is distracting.
This is a good video.
good video brother...keep it up
Great video
nice video!
It was a very important event in the war for the US as was the sinking of the rest of their carriers that were at Midway & other engagements including The Philippine Sea but i think the loss of The Yamato was worse for Japan at Wars end & with all on board & the time & manpower to build her it was one hell of loss . For us it was one of the major turning points in the War.
Thank you!
Thanks , great video and props
Sinking of Shokaku meant little to Japan--because Japan's naval air arm had been almost totally destroyed, her carriers had almost no planes aboard, so hokaku and other carriers in the flotilla were used as mere bait to draw Halsey north and away from San Bernadino Strait, where the colossal Center Force was to break through and destroy the Leyte landings. In this, Ozawa succeeded, an alsey destroyed most of the flotilla. That cleared the way for the mighty Center Force--but, in the greates battle in USN history, it was beaten back by 3 USN destroyers, 3 Destroyer Escorts and a handful of woolworth carriers. Read James Hornfischer's masterpiece, Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, and you will learn what true heroism is.
Wrong battle. You are talking about a battle that happened several months after the one Shokaku was sunk in. This is not Leyte gulf, this is the Philippine sea.
Thanks for posting!
New subscriber. Very well done, thank you.
Very good! But would have appreciated simply tactical maps (graphics) showing the positions and distances between the various different Japanese and U.S. ships mentioned as they converged and exchanged fire. Would have helped me better visualize the battle.
Thank you.
Plan to tour his Sub in May with all of my cousins on one the retired as Rear Admal
Well done!
They didn't give up the damage control fight soon enough.
Great job! Thanks!
Glass cannon describes a normal Japanese carrier. They had the worst damage control systems, sloppy procedures, and training. They just assumed no one would hit them.
Not always, Zuikaku had an experienced damage control team that proved very competent, even during the battle that sunk her.
@@augustosolari7721 True, Hiryū had good discipline, but overall, leaving loose bombs in the hangers during battles just is not good leaderships. Most importantly, their damage control systems had single point of failures everywhere.
Shokaku had the best. look at santa cruz.
There were certainly design flaws and poor damage control procedures, but Shokaku had an excellent DC crew that saved the ship after serious bomb hits at Coral Sea and at Santa Cruz. In some ways, she was a better carrier than the new Taiho.
Superb video. Well researched and reported. Nice work.that
Nice use of the model
Nice video.
Well done vid. Thx.
Musashi, Shinano and Yamato were greater losses.
Edit to add...
Ironically, Shokaku was lost the same way USS Wasp (CV-7) was on 15 September 1942. Each ship took three torpedoes, and burned for hours before sinking.
Can't resist...Operation A-go was a go. HeHe Smile!
If the IJN trained new pilots and rotated veteran pilots, their carrier force would have remained on-par with the US. Instead, they restricted the training of new pilots, and continued sending all their experienced pilots to the front-lines until death.
They treated the trainee pilots with sadistic brutality, which certainly did not help.
Was rotation a new thing at that time or it's an American exclusive?
1,272...nice number. Love Karma.
use of model was great
Excellent video and I found the use of models very helpful. I know they were the enemy but what a waste.
You guys really should figure out the difference between explosion and detonation.. because there is.
This battle was also known as the Great Mariannas Turkey Shoot due to the huge loss of Japanese aircraft by US fighters
"Operation A-Go is a go!"
Cavalla's sonar man heard the noises of the carrier's sinking.
So many lives lost fore what the same thing happens today all countries don’t consider there people as a lost treasure
Have they found the wreck of the shokaku,and if so,at what depth?
This is why you have redundant dc and fire fighting systems and you train your whole crew in DC and firefighting. Even so the ships design was its Achilles heel, outboard is not a good place for avgas and magazines.
Good presentation but Midway and Battle of the Philippine Sea were their greatest losses
nice
The Japanese claimed they took 4 torpedoes, not 3!
Different accounts give either 3 or 4, the majority settled on 3, including the submarine commander that fired the torpedoes.
What happened to the sub that sank the ship?
Forecastle is peonounces Fohksulh
1275 men went down with her. WOW!
Don't mess with the USA Navy
The Panche of the United States Navy was delivered to the carrier.
Japanese Damage controll was their weakest link. It seems that they thought that their Capitol Ships would never take a serious hit and never push for real quality Damage Controll.
There were 2 main issues-damage control crews were specific personnel in the IJN, as opposed to the crew wife training received by USN Personnel. And those that were experienced stayed on the ship they were assigned to until it sunk or they died, unlike the USN practice of rotating officers and men to spread training.
Forecastle???
👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
darn, too bad that the sister subs were not close.
Sorry, Zuikaku was the 'greatest' because it was ALSO lucky in addition to being physically able.
Napoleon was right.
With the loss of her exterior armour protection (Aka Shokaku), Zuikaku Will be next.
🥰🥰🥰🥰
Great vid… confusing.., I can’t side with the Japanese.. knowing what they did to our civilians & boys in the Pacific…, but man they served Japan 100%, and they suffered incredibly
USS Indianapolis
I did learn something ! Don't bomb Pearl Harbor without a proper declaration of war ?
The battle where this happened is indeed the Battle of the Philippines sea.. but American military refer to it as the 'Great Marianas Turkey Shoot' because the losses were so one side on the Japanese side.
Japan had not been pulling their experienced pilots off the line during the war to help with training new pilots.. so by 1944 the experience level among the pilots was basically 'they knew how to land and take-off and the other basics'.. but didn't have the requisite leadership on tactics to use against the Americans... That, more than anything, contributed to the incredible loss of life among the Japanese combatants... the sinking of the ships was merely a byproduct of the pilots lack of ability to defend their ships and attack American ships.
The other contributing factor was the use of unrefined petroleum in their ships because Japan didn't have enough tankers at that point in the war.. and the naptha present in the unrefined petroleum set up the conditions for the volatile atmospheres that formed after their fuel lines were hit. A prescription for utter disaster.
Seemingly innocuous decisions were made that turned that battle into a bloodbath for the Japanese.
Every time the Japanese set out for a "decisive battle," they seemed to find one. They just never quite worked out as planned.
SHOKAKU was the most effective Japanese carrier of the war in terms of offensive operations against the U.S. Navy but by June 1944 the Japanese could not embark effective air groups on any of their carriers. Their aircraft types had become obsolete against their counterparts in the U.S. fast carrier task forces and could not make significant penetrations through their shipboard antiaircraft defenses. The Kido Butai, the Japanese Mobile Fleet carrier force, essentially did its damage to the U.S. Navy in 1942. By 1944 they were outclassed and totally outnumbered and the loss of its carriers had become only an inevitable matter of time.
I like the model and showing the hits. It would be great if you could more battle damage on your model .
Great presentation
Thank you for sharing yet another excellent video. The details you gave are fascinating.
"The loss of Shokaku was significant in a few ways"
Yeah, one of my favourite ships of all time an absolute beauty has been sunk. 😭😭.
Yeah I really do love the Shokaku class that much.
I do have a couple questions though on a more serious note.
The first is, in your developing shokaku video you talked about how the torpedo protection was around 53% less effective than what it would havd been had they gone with the live testing.
If they did have that level of torpedo protection how much of a difference if any could that have made?
The second is, both ships haven't been found. The two sisters are forever apart by what looks to be nearly 2000miles. Will their wrecks ever be discovered?
Anyone noticed that Shokaku sunk in almost the exact same way USS Wasp (CV-7) was lost in 1942?
The one thing you failed to mention is that it was the Cavalla's first tour of duty. I make sure to visit her every chance I'm in Galveston
And in a year or so will have the USS Texas a short distance down the channel.
The death toll of crew on Shinano was even higher but more survived.