In the early 17th century the Japanese shogun (technically, a military leader serving the emperor; in reality, the ruler of the country) cut off all contact with the West, seeing Europeans as meddlesome, smelly, troublemakers who could plunge the country back into the civil wars that had plagued it for centuries. In the limited time of contact, the Japanese adopted gunpowder, firearms, and cartography as the most useful elements of ‘Dutch learning’ as they then called it. But this source of information was cut off for the higher value of securing internal peace. In 1853, when the American Commodore Matthew Perry’s five ‘Black Ships’ entered Tokyo Bay, the isolation was forever shattered. The smelly Westerners had returned with a vengeance, demanding trade concessions and treating the Japanese every bit as arrogantly as they had been treating the Chinese. (1) The ‘Meiji Revolution’ of 1868, which overthrew the 250-year rule of the Tokugawa clan, ‘restored the emperor’ (at the time a 14-year old youth named Meiji) to actual rule. The Japanese made a conscious decision to catch up with the Western barbarians: students were sent abroad; foreign experts were brought in – even the style of dress and the architecture of buildings were changed to imitate the West. Within a single generation the Japanese had all the elements of modernization – steel factories, railways, universal schooling – but she lacked the resources to pay for all this change. Thus the development of the textile industry using cheap labour and the rapid expansion of silk production was encouraged. The Japanese were forced to export, to become traders, and trade required ships and ships required navies for their protection.

Virtually every major warship in the new Japanese navy until the WWI time period was built in a British yard and her navy was developed and trained by British officers and technicians. The effectiveness of this training was shown in a brief war with China, 1894-95, that Japan won handily (Formosa was the prize won in this war). Within a few years Japan had a formal military alliance with Great Britain (1902). Basically, Japan would protect British interests in the Far East, allowing the Royal Navy to concentrate all its major units in the North Sea to face the threat of Imperial Germany. In return, the Japanese would continue to receive technical assistance at the highest level. In 1904-05 Japan and Russia went to war. Despite difficult conditions, Japan’s army had numerous victories, particularly at Mukden, but it was the Navy under Admiral Togo that won a spectacular victory in 1905 at the naval Battle of Tsushima, sinking 38 of the 42 vessels the Russians had sent against them. Control of Korea was secured by this victory and yet….it was known that the Japanese economy could not sustain a long war, most of Japan’s ships, including Togo’s flagship Mikasa (picture 1) were built in British yards, and within one year of Tsushima the British launched HMS Dreadnought and made the entire Japanese fleet obsolete.

A new fleet would have to be built with as many ships as possible designed and constructed in Japanese yards. The Japanese could not keep up with the numbers of battleships and battle cruisers that the British or Germans, or even Americans after 1916, could produce, thus there was always an emphasis on producing better ships. When WWI broke out, Japan declared war on Germany, seized some Pacific islands, and attacked the main base used by the Germans in China, the port of Tsingtao. Once that base was taken, there was little fighting to be done. Observers were sent to Britain and France to keep abreast of technical developments and what those observers discovered was that yet again, Japan was far behind, especially in the field of aviation. A shipbuilding industry existed in Japan: now an aircraft industry would have to be created where none existed before. And there was a further problem – the fleet, the mechanized portions of the army, and some industry now depended upon oil and the nearest oil was the Dutch East Indies (modern Indonesia) and the supply route lay across the Philippines, islands taken from the weak Spanish by the growing power of the United States in 1898, the same year that the United States declared ownership of the Hawaiian Islands. Having been granted former German islands in the south Pacific, Japan now saw that she and the U.S. might have competing interests in the western Pacific.

So in 1919, with the war over, with new technical innovations in ships; with vast developments in aviation technology; with a new ‘naval arms race’ developing between herself, the British, and the Americans; and with a new dependency upon oil emerging (2), the Japanese did not see a secure future for themselves – what they saw was a familiar pattern of having to ‘catch up’ at great expense.

In March of 1909, the same year that Victor Lougheed wrote his prescient paragraph on the development of aircraft-carrying ships, and Louis Blériot flew over the English Channel [see the first article in this series] Lt.Cdr. Yamamoto Eisuke of the General Staff (3) wrote a “Statement Concerning the Study of Aeronautics” in which he claimed that future naval warfare would take place in three dimensions. Bitter rivalry with the Army, and the support of an air-minded Navy Minister (Saito Makoku) led to a separate “Committee for the Study of Naval Aeronautics” being formed by 1910. This committee then sent young officers to the United States, France, and Germany where a number of them learned to fly and purchases were made of a Glenn Curtiss and a Maurice Farman seaplane. (4) A rough base was established at Oppama and from here these two aircraft were assembled, tested, and then flown on Nov.12 before the Emperor. (5) In 1913 that naval transport Wakamiya Maru was fitted out with derricks and hangars to hold two assembled and two disassembled seaplanes. That fall she participated in Combined Fleet exercises and her seaplanes found the ‘enemy forces’ without exposing her own position. Trials early in 1914 confirmed this ability to project a presence beyond visible range.(6) Shortly after WWI began, the Wakayama Maru (7) with four Maurice Farman seaplanes on board participated in the siege of the German base at Tsingtao, China. (picture 2) Reconnaissance was the main mission although six to ten artillery shells were carried on most flights and dropped over the side of the aircraft. Despite a top speed of only 50kts(85kph) and a ceiling of only 1500 ft.(450m), none were shot down by German ground forces and, in turn, the ‘bombing’ did little damage. (picture 3) When the Wakamiya hit a mine on Sept.30, 1914, her aircraft were landed and operated for a week from a strip of beach held by Japanese forces. (picture 4) Eight days later the ship was repaired and serviceable and recovered her aircraft. Soon after, the base surrendered and by the end of November all German possessions in the Far East had been seized and the Japanese would gain no further combat experience.(8)

World War 1 brought rapid development of aircraft – their performance, their roles, and their further potential – and the Japanese missed most of this. They had many observers in the European war zones (including one on HMS Furious in 1918) but that only confirmed how much ground had to be made up. All aircraft and pilot training had to be purchased or accomplished overseas, so obviously an aircraft industry and flight training facilities would have to be created where none had been before. And for the Japanese Navy there was a special problem called the Japanese Army. Neither the Army nor the Navy would ever allow the creation of a separate military service as had happened in Britain with the creation of the Royal Air Force (April 1, 1918) which meant their rivalry could continue unabated and it was in every way as bitter as the rivalry between the US Army and USN in the days of Billy Mitchell. The aircraft that the Japanese Army would set specifications for were intended for a land war where Russia would be the expected enemy but by the late 1920’s the Japanese Navy saw the United States, and perhaps Great Britain, as the potential foe, and so they set requirements for aircraft quite differently from the Army. Army and Navy plane factories were separate from one another and kept secrets from each other. Not even screws and rivets were standard between the two services, never mind electrical systems and radios. (9) The Japanese Army in 1919 invited a French technical mission led by Col. Jaques-Paul Faure to come to Japan: twenty Armée de l’Air officers and thirty other technicians, along with numerous aircraft, arrived. The army had stolen a step on the Navy! Despite visits to the French mission by naval officers (picture 5 shows Admiral Togo Heihachiro, the great victor of Tsushima, and Navy and Army officers in front of a French aircraft), this was not enough, the navy would need its own foreign mission.

In December of 1919 the keel was laid for a ship that was intended as a seaplane/airplane carrier. Like British carriers at the time (the only ones in existence, one completed, two building) a cruiser hull was the basic form. It would be named Hosho or ‘Flying Phoenix’ and like its contemporaries its design would change as it was being built. The Japanese Navy wanted two carriers (the 1918 and 1920 programs) but in the end only Hosho would be built.(10) Very early it was decided that the ship would be a ‘pure’ aircraft carrier (11) so features such as a seaplane slipway and associated cranes at the stern were eliminated, just as they had been on HMS Hermes. In the summer of 1920 the Navy requested that a British naval mission be sent to Japan. After some diplomatic games were played, in November 1920 an ‘unofficial civilian mission’ was approved and early in 1921 Sir William Francis Forbes Sempill, RAF, and 30 technical experts arrived at Kasumigaura. Officially an officer in the RAF, Sempill had tested many naval aircraft and he hand-picked the members of the ‘mission’ which was expected to last a year. Along with the team came 100 aircraft – 20 different models, five of which were being used by the Fleet Air Arm. Using these aircraft, it was expected that 5000 hours of training for flight instructors could be accomplished during the year. (12) Note in picture 6 Admiral Togo with Sempill, this time by a Gloster Sparrowhawk. Private firms, which wanted sales, ‘attached’ additional personnel to the mission. Within a year, three different aircraft would be designed by these gaijins (foreigners) to be used on Hosho, a ship being built to carry aircraft but at the time of its building there were none. Quite literally, the Japanese carrier navy began from nothing.

Hosho, at 7500 tons standard, was much smaller in displacement than her contemporaries HMS Argus and USS Langley but she was much faster at 25kts and could carry as many aircraft (21) on a flight deck of almost comparable size. (13) As with Argus, the forward flight deck was sloped downward and came almost to a point at the bow; as with Langley, she discharged gases through hinged funnels (there were three of these amidships). (pictures 7 and 8) She had 4 5.5” guns with two 3” H/A anti-aircraft guns but these latter were sited on the narrow deck. As built she had a small island forward on the starboard side (picture 9 is a post-card showing a fanciful and inaccurate Hosho) but pilots objected to its presence as the deck was already very narrow. This original island was a hazard and was far too small for navigation, air traffic control, and gunnery fire control to be effectively managed, thus by 1924 Hosho became a flush-deck carrier and flight operations were controlled from an operations platform beside the flight deck. (14)(pictures 10 and 11) Designed with British assistance, it was too be expected that her landing apparatus would be a set of longitudinal wires (the ‘Busteed Trap’) designed to keep the aircraft travelling straight until a tail hook caught a transverse wire. But the hooks on a bar between the undercarriage struts would often cause a nose-over on landing, thus many pilots lost teeth or even consciousness when slammed against the cockpit. (15) Soon it was realized that the system was unnecessary and was removed. (16) Commissioned in December, 1922, the first take-off and landing occurred with William Jordan, ex-RNAS working for Mitsubishi, flying a new Type 10 Carrier fighter. One month later Shunichi Kira became the first Japanese pilot to land on a carrier. (17)

The earliest aircraft manufacturers in Japan began with licensing arrangements to manufacture foreign designs but this would not create an independent industry: at best, it could only be a first step. Thus Mitsubishi, Kawanishi, and Nakajima, the companies that would come to dominate Japan’s naval aviation, gave large bonuses to bring in designers from established companies. Just as the Sempill mission was training flight instructors, so do the Japanese were being given experience in aircraft design. Most significant was the arrival of Mr. Herbert Smith from Sopwith for he was given the assignment by Mitsubishi of designing not one, but three new carrier aircraft. Smith had in WWI designed the Pup and the Triplane for Sopwith and now he set to work in Japan. By October of 1921 the first prototype of the new Mitsubishi Type 10 Carrier Fighter (1MF) was completed. It was tested and accepted by the Navy and became the first aircraft to operate from Hosho. (18) It served from 1923 to 1930 and 138 were built, the last serving as trainers. (19) (picture 12) Given the longitudinal wires placed on Hosho, the type 10 had claws, designed to grab these wires, mounted on the wheel axles. There were a number of sub-types and the last, the 1MF-5A was the trainer version. It had larger wings for safer landings on carriers and also had floats under each wing and jettisonable landing gear in case of emergency landings on the water. (20)

The second aircraft designed by Herbert Smith was the 2MR, a two seat reconnaissance plane. It was designated Type 10 Carrier Based Reconnaissance and 159 were built, being basically an enlarged version of the Type 10 fighter. (picture 13) Smith’s torpedo plane, the 1MT, was designed as a triplane and was too large for the Hosho. Only 20 were built before production was halted. Smith then created a new design, the 2MT, using a bi-wing planform and this became the Type 13 torpedo bomber, entering ser vice in 1925 and staying in production until 1933, by which time 442 had been built. (21)(picture 14) Thus Hosho had, before the arrival of the giants Akagi and Kaga, an air wing containing all three types of aircraft, although the total that could be accommodated in her narrow 423’ (130m) hangar was only 21. She did have larger elevators than her contemporaries, a feature of Japanese carriers to be discussed more fully in the next article. Note that they are rectangular in shape, not the T-shape that was typical of the first British and American carriers. (22) (Picture 15)

All of these new aircraft required trained pilots and whereas 5000 hours of training provided by the Sempill mission gave the Japanese Navy a core of instructor-pilots, the source for pilots and observers which had been Naval Academy graduates soon proved inadequate. A 1928 pilot training program recruited non-commissioned officers from the fleet and one year later a Flight Reserve Enlisted Training Program recruited 15-17 year old boys, gave them three years of general naval training, and then sent them to Yokosuka Air Group for basic flight training, either as a pilot or an observer. (23)

Hosho can be compared directly with HMS Argus in terms of size, air wing, service and longevity. Japan’s first aircraft carrier, she was destined to be her last, surviving WWII and not being scrapped until 1947. From her commissioning on 16 Dec. 1922 to 1933 she served as a front-line combined fleet warship even though, like HMS Argus and USS Langley, she was officially an ‘experimental ship’ and did not count against Japan’s allowable carrier tonnage by the Washington Naval Agreement. Her fleet service helped to define the techniques and procedures that would serve the Japanese Navy well in the development of naval air power: for example, she was the test-bed for the optical landing aids the IJN used for carrier landings [to be detailed in a later article]. But she was ultimately too small and slow to be kept in front-line service. (24) From 1933 to 1938 she was a training carrier (picture 16) but as the conflict in China became more serious she was given a small air wing (of basically obsolescent types, still useful as the Chinese had not yet been supplied with many modern aircraft) and from 1938-1940 her pilots engaged in combat. By this time there had been other modifications to the ship. The flight deck had been lengthened and widened (the forward flight deck no longer sloped downward after 1924) and her funnels were permanently fixed outward and downward in 1934. (25) She was again a training carrier from 1940 to early 1942, then was given modern aircraft (but she could only handle 10-12 of these larger, heavier machines) and participated in the Battle of Midway as a support carrier, to the rear of the main body. Having survived the Midway disaster, she returned to Japan and the role of a training carrier and her deck was again lengthened and widened. When the war was over she was used to repatriate Japanese soldiers and then in 1947 she was scrapped. (26) Pictures 17-20 which completes this paragraph shows diagrams of Hosho that differ from one another – to achieve accuracy with a model of Hosho is not easy as we shall see next.

Pictures 21 and 22 show the only models I could find of IJN Wakamiya: they are 1:1250 metal models produced by a company called Hai. Hosho is also to be found in this scale: Neput (NE 1291) depicts here as she was in 1942. (pictures 23 and 24) Again, however, Hosho like all the other early carriers in this series (with the exception of USS Langley)is poorly represented in the modeling world. I could find no plans (27) nor models, in styrene, resin, or other mediums, of Hosho except for the 1:700 kit by Fujimi. This kit was produced in three versions, all of which show Hosho in her earliest configuration with the small superstructure she had for the first year of her career. Kit 43084 is the ‘standard’ kit and may still be available; Kit 43085 has a wooden flight deck provided (pictures 25 and 26) but has been discontinued by the manufacturer; and Kit 43086 added some photo-etched parts but it too has been discontinued. Small as it is, this 1:700 kit can be made into a pleasing model as can be seen if you go to www.aeronautic.dk/Warship%20Hosho.htm and view the 25 pictures of the Hosho model.

Next: Béarn -- France's only aircraft carrier before World War II

1.The ‘Opium Wars’ of the early 1840’s are a classic example of this. To compensate for the cost of team imported from China, the British insisted on their ‘right’ to trade in opium to China and fought two brief ‘wars’ to impose their will on the Chinese government. One of the offshoots of this war was the lease for 150 years of the islands that became Hong Kong, returned to China in 1997.

2. The number one supplier of oil to Japan throughout the 1920’s and 1930’s was the United States. It is no exaggeration to state that World War II was the first global war for oil. The Germans, Italians, and Japanese had none of their own; the British, Americans, and Soviets controlled most of the world’s supply.

3. Not to be confused with Yamamoto Isoroku, Commander of the Japanese Navy in 1941 and architect of the attack on Pearl Harbour. In Japan, the surname or family name is first, then the given name.

4. Note that they were not sent to Great Britain. By this time battleships could be made in Japan, originally requiring 80% imported materials but at the time of the outbreak of WWI only 20% was required to be imported. The Japanese in 1909 felt too dependent upon the British and the British government of the day was seen as being too friendly to China; thus no officers were sent to Britain, a formal ally, and one was sent to Germany, the expected opponent of Britain and France.

5. Pettie, M.R., Sunburst: the Rise of Japanese Naval Air Power 1909-1941, pp.3-6

6. Colon, R., “Japanese Carriers of WW2” in www.world-war-2-planes.com

7. For reasons that are unknown, it was not until early 1915 that ‘Maru’ was officially dropped from the ship’s name, indicating it was now a warship and not an auxiliary

8. Pettie, op. cit., pp.7-9

9. “Japanese Aircraft Production in WWII” in www.world-war-2-planes.com

10. The intention was to have one carrier for experiments and another for training. (exactly the same idea as in the USN at the time) The second carrier was to have been named ‘Shokaku’, a name given later to a fleet carrier.

11. hoku bokan – ‘mother ship for aircraft’

12. Pettie, op. cit., pp.18-20

13. Argus was the largest ‘experimental’ carrier: 173m x 20.7m x 6.4m (566’ x 68’ x 21’); 14,000 tons standard; 20 kts (38kph).

Langley was next in size: 165.3m x 20m x 6m (542’ x 65’ x 19’); 11,500 tons standard; 15kts(27kph).

Hosho was: 165m x 18m x 6.16m (541’ x 58.6 x 21); 7, 500 tons standard; 25knts (46kph)

14. And it would remain here until the arrival of the fleet carriers that entered service just before WWII as they tended to have larger islands. For Akagi (1927), Kaga (1928), and Ruyjo (1934) flight operations were not controlled from the island.

15. This was true on all the carriers – Argus, Langley, and others , that used this system. Its rather strange to think that many carrier pilots of the 1920’s ended up looking like hockey players in the days before helmets and teeth guards.

16. Jones, D.,”IJN Hosho and her Aircraft” in http://smmlonline.com/articles/hosho/hosho.html p.2

17. Myhraman, J., “Mitsubishi Type 10 Carrier Fighter” in www.j-aircraft.com/drawings/johan/1mf.htm p.1

18. Type 10 as 1921 was the 10th year of the reign of the emperor Taisho: 1MF as an alternate designation. 1=first; M=Mitsubishi; F= fighter. From Myhraman, op. cit., p. 1

19. Idem

20. Ibid., p.4

21. Jones, op.cit., p.2

22. Stille, M., Imperial Japanese Navy Aircraft Carriers 1921-1945, p.10; and Pettie, op. cit., p. 53

23. Evans, D., and Pettie, M., Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy 1887-1941, p.324

24. Pettie, op. cit., p. 228

25. Jones, op. cit., p.3 and Pettie, op. cit., p.53

26. Jones, op. cit., p.3

27. Stay away from www.the-blueprints.com I have provided better ‘plans’ than what can be found on this website (and of course what I have provided, lacking hull cross-sections and large-scale detail, is close to totally useless).

Colon, Raoul, “Japanese Carriers of WW2” in www.world-war-2-planes.com

Evans, David C., and Pettie, Mark R., Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy 1887-1941, Naval Institute Press, 1997

“Japanese Aircraft Production in WWII” in www.world-war-2-planes.com

Jones, Daniel H., “IJN Hosho and her Aircraft” in http://smmlonline.com/articles/hosho/hosho.html

Myhraman, Johan, “Mitsubishi Type 10 Carrier Fighter” in www.j-aircraft.com/drawings/johan/1mf.htm

Pettie, M.R., Sunburst: the Rise of Japanese Naval Air Power 1909-1941, Naval Institute Press, 2001

Stille, Mark, Imperial Japanese Navy Aircraft Carriers 1921-1945, Osprey Publishing, 2005

Main Picture: Kure Science Museum, public domain

Last Picture: Kure Science Museum, public domain

Picture 1: IJN, public domain

Picture 2: IJN, public domain

Picture 3: IJN, public domain

Picture 4: IJN, public domain

Picture 5: IJN, public domain

Picture 6: Gov. Japan, public domain

Picture 7: www.digilander.libero

Picture 8: www.globalsecurity.org

Picture 9: National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)

Picture 10: Kure Maritime Museum

Picture 11: www.michael-reimer.com

Picture 12: IJN, public domain

Picture 13: IJN, public domain

Picture 14: IJN, public domain

Picture 15: www.digilander.libero

Picture 16: www.michael-reimer.com

Picture 17: USN, public domain

Picture 18: USN, public domain

Picture 19: www.globalsecurity.org

Picture 20: www.michael-reimer.com

Picture 21: www.collectableships.com

Picture 22: www.collectableships.com

Picture 23: www.collectableships.com

Picture 24: www.collectableships.com

Picture 25: www.hlj.com

Picture 26: www.hlj.com