Sinking of the Shinano by the USS Archerfish Submarine 1944 Animated

in late November 1944 Japan was busy building a massive super carrier capable of tipping the balance of Naval power back in its favor after humiliating defeats at Midway and the lady Gulf but despite ample planning and near total secrecy the ambitious scheme ended swiftly ending gloriously after a chance encounter with a lone American submarine Southwest of Tokyo bay after the first world war America Britain France and Japan sought to avoid a costly Naval arms race while promoting peace and pursuing their own interests in the asia-pacific region to that end the United States hosted the Washington conference beginning in late 1921 with the signing of three major treaties the following year the countries agreed to respect China's sovereignty and one another's rights in the region and to abide by strict Naval tonnage restrictions meant to deter yet another military escalation however Japan was limited to just 315 000 tons while the limits for the United States and Great Britain were set at 525 000 tons Japan was insulted by its second tier status and when requests for equality were rejected it announced that the treaty would be terminated in 1936. tensions between Japan and the United States continued to escalate throughout the 20s and 30s to curb Japan's Colonial expansion in China and Southeast Asia the United States imposed a number of embargoes that stem the flow of vital military and economic resources like scrap metal and oil Japan retaliated on December 7 1941 by launching a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor that killed nearly 2 500 Americans and damaged or destroyed dozens of ships and more than 300 aircraft the following day President Roosevelt announced that war had been declared on Japan and a few days later on December 11 war was declared on Germany as well in early June 1942 Japan suffered a debilitating defeat at the Battle of Midway when it lost four aircraft carriers one Cruiser and hundreds of airplanes in just a few days in part the humiliating route was the result of U.S Navy code Breakers ability to intercept and decipher vital Japanese communication before and during the engagement and with its carrier Fleet decimated Japan had to find replacements wherever it could one quick fix was to convert ships that were already being built for other roles into aircraft carriers one was the massive shinano which was originally intended to be a battleship alongside sister ships Musashi and Yamato but after Midway shinano's design was altered and construction schedules were ramped up to get the ship ready for battle as a carrier as quickly as possible and Captain to shio Abe was selected to oversee the process and take command once the ship was ready for the high seas experienced determined and fiercely patriotic Abe was just what the Imperial Japanese Navy needed to see its grand plan through to fruition shinano's Keel had been laid on May 4th 1940 but construction was temporarily halted in mid-1941 when the Japanese Navy was busy preparing for the attack on Pearl Harbor however after Japan's crippling loss at Midway in 1942 construction was not only restarted on an even more ambitious timeline by then the ship was less than 50 complete and it remained under construction in Dry Dock number six of yokozuka Naval Arsenal until slipping into the water for the first time on October 8 1944. that said the momentous event didn't go smoothly and some saw it as a sign of even worse things to come during the tricky floating out process a massive and improperly balanced casein at the end of the graving dock drifted into shinano's bow causing significant damage that took nearly three weeks to fix nonetheless shinano was quite a spectacle when she was finally ready for her maiden voyage at more than 870 feet long 130 feet wide and with a full displacement of 72 000 tons it was the largest aircraft carrier in existence at the time due to its sheer size abundant Weaponry ample armor protection and advanced radar system shinano was thought to be virtually indestructible but like All Ships it had its Achilles heels its heft made it difficult to maneuver some of its complex systems weren't particularly reliable and ironically it lacked effective anti-submarine defenses but perhaps worst of all the secrecy on which Japan so heavily relied was shattered when a high-flying American B-29 converted for reconnaissance took a photograph of the ship while flying over yokozuka Naval Base on November 19th this was one of only two known photographs ever taken of the ship and with that particularly timely flight the United States had uncovered one of Japan's most closely guarded secrets shinana was originally scheduled for completion in April 1945 but finishing the ship became a top priority immediately after the surprise attack on Tokyo carried out by Lieutenant Jimmy Doolittle's b-25b Mitchell bombers on April 18 1942 Doolittle's daring raid didn't cause much damage but it gave the Americans a much needed boost in morale and revealed that Japan wasn't Invincible to attacks on its own soil the attack on Tokyo also forced the Japanese to reposition resources from other theaters and even raised concerns that the United States might plan an all-out invasion of the island nation if so shinano would be on the front line of Naval defense Japan was already caught between a rock and a hard place on a number of fronts but the situation became even more dire after another defeat at the Battle of the Philippine Sea in June of 1944 after which the Japanese assumed that the U.S would commence a heavy bombing campaign with aircraft based in the Mariana Islands shinano was ordered to sail for Kure no later than November 28th but Captain Abe requested a delay because most of the ship's watertight doors hadn't been installed compartment air tests hadn't been performed and many holes in bulkheads for electrical cables ventilation ducts and pipes hadn't been sealed furthermore the fire Mains and bailing systems weren't in full working order and the crew hadn't been trained in how to use the portable pumps but Abe's request was denied despite these glaring issues and shinano set sail along with the three escort destroyers at 1800 hours on November 28th as originally planned at 20 knots shinano needed less than a day to make the trip to Kure Captain Abe would have preferred a daytime journey to allow for extra training and to give the Destroyer Crews time to recuperate however he was forced to make the trip at night because the Navy didn't have enough planes to provide air support and shinano wasn't yet equipped with its own aircraft those on board included Captain Abe nearly 2 200 officers and sailors 300 Shipyard workers and 40 civilian employees Abe's orders were to proceed to Kure complete the fitting up process and from there transport dozens of suicide boats Kamikaze planes and Oka suicide flying bombs to Okinawa and the Philippines however the fate of shinano and its crew may have been sealed when a number of vital doors and hatches were carelessly left open to give workers in semen easy access to various compartments the U.S submarine archerfish left Hawaii on October 30th under the command of Commander Joseph F Enright the southern crew stopped in Saipan on the 9th for minor repairs and departed two days later on its next troll in which its primary mission was to provide lifeguard services for the first wave of B-29 super Fortress strikes being carried out against Tokyo but on November 28th the captain was informed that no raids would be launched that day and that he could roam freely around Tokyo bay to see what he could find that evening Lookout spotted what appeared to be a huge tanker and multiple escorts leaving Port but the ship spotted by archerfish's crew was actually shinano leaving on its maiden voyage with the Destroyers izokaze yukikaze and hamakaze as escorts however the Destroyers weren't in Tip-Top shape because Crews were exhausted and the ships themselves were in dire need of repairs after participating in the Battle of laity Gulf between October 23 and 26th archerfish immediately began tracking the Convoy on a parallel course and when shinano's crew detected the sub Captain Abe could have made the decision to use his vessel's Superior speed to Simply outrun the threat but when archerfish broke the surface within sight of shinano at 22 4500 hours izukaze's Captain disobeyed instructions and left the defensive formation to investigate because he thought archerfish was part of a larger wolf pack Abe assumed that it was being used as a decoy to draw the escorts away from shinano so another unseen sub or Subs could get off unobstructed torpedo shots now with the deadly gamerfoot Captain Abe ordered the Destroyer back into formation and plotted a new course at a higher speed away from the enemy though this simple strategy may have worked speed had to be reduced at 23 2200 hours when one of shinano's main shaft bearings began to overheat then at 2 56 the following morning shinano made a Southwest turn and began sailing directly toward archerfish to put an end to the engagement once and for all in response archerfish immediately turned East and dove in anticipation of the impending attack next shinano and its escorts turned sharply to the South and one of the accompanying destroyers went right over the submerging sub without noticing it but with this bold tactic Abe unwittingly exposed his vulnerable carrier meanwhile Captain Enright had his crew set the subs Torpedoes to run shallow because he hoped that if the massive carrier took multiple hits right below the water line that it might just roll over on its side and sink at 3 15. archerfish launched six Torpedoes in quick succession and Dove even deeper to 400 feet to avoid depth charge attacks from the escorting Destroyers of the six Torpedoes launched four hit their marks at an average depth of just 4.27 meters the initial strike flooded a number of compartments in the stern including an empty aviation fuel storage tank the second torpedo hit near where the starboard propeller shaft protruded from the hull and resulted in flooding in the outboard engine room a number of boiler rooms were flooded by the third torpedo strike and the fourth breached an oil storage tank and flooded the adjacent anti-aircraft gun magazines the number two damage control station and the starboard air compressor room despite the severe damage Captain Abe and many of the officers and civilian experts on board believe that American Torpedoes were incapable of sinking the mighty ship and that the situation was manageable but this misplaced faith in shinano's design and construction resulted in such lack of urgency that Abe ordered the carrier to continue on its course at full speed even after the last torpedo hit meanwhile thousands of tons of seawater flooded into the ship at an alarming rate and as a result the ship quickly listed 10 degrees to starboard the crew worked frantically to stem the flow but despite their heroic efforts the list eventually increased to 13 degrees even after 3 000 long tons of water were pumped into the port bilges at this point Captain Abe ordered the ship to sail toward nearby shiono point after acknowledging that the damage was far worse than he originally thought Abe's gamut may have saved the crippled shinano but the engines lost power at approximately 700 hours due to a lack of steam and shortly thereafter the captain had no other choice but to order the evacuation of all propulsion compartments with shinano dead in the water more unsuccessful attempts were made to level the heavily listing ship and when electrical power was lost Captain Abe gave the order to abandon shinano at 10 18. by then the list had reached nearly 30 degrees and just before 11AM shinano rolled over and sank taking more than 1 400 men and Captain Abe with it more than a thousand survivors were rescued by the Destroyers but though they'd miraculously escaped death they were quickly sequestered on the island of mitsokojima until January 1945 to ensure that no word of the embarrassing loss leaked out domestically or internationally shinana was the country's last and greatest hope to oppose the U.S Navy's Swift carrier task formations that were running roughshod over beligra Japanese forces in the Pacific the loss of shinano also revealed just how vulnerable large warships were to attack from submarines and it also called into question the Imperial Japanese Navy's submarine defenses and intelligence all of which had major ramifications for Naval strategy and Doctrine in the post-war years

Channel: The Warline

Views: 104,438

Keywords: wwii, Yamato, Shinano, Archerfish, Naval Warfare, Documentary, Historical Footage, Submarine Warfare

Id: YdViIPbdbDs

Length: 13min 3sec (783 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 09 2023