I read somewhere that Abe ordered all civillians to the flight deck, but he actually said "all hands to the flight deck". His mistake saved many lives as the crew had not been trained on evacuation drills and Shinano had 2 hallways instead of 1, so this allowed many people who were still unfamiliar with Shinano to make it up to the flight deck.
A good case can be made that the first of the so-called "Super-Carriers" was actually the USS Forrestal (CV-59). Completed in 1955, the 78,000-ton USS Forrestal was the first new U.S. Navy carrier to be designed after WW-II, the first to be designed with an angled flight deck, and the first to be designed specifically to operate modern jet aircraft.
That was my first thought. The Forrestal was the first supercarrier from conception to service. A case could be made s well that the first true supercarriers were the nuclear powered Entrerprise class because of their nearly unlimited range and duration.
@@mpeterll First; Shinano was not designed from the outset to be an aircraft carrier. She was a converted battleship. Consequently, despite her size, she would never have been as efficient as a designed-for-the-purpose carrier. Similarly, it is a little-known fact that, early in 1942 the U.S. Navy considered converting the Normandie into what would have been our largest aircraft carrier. However, she would have been nowhere near as efficient as a smaller one designed for the purpose, such as the USS Essex class. However, whatever consideration had been given to that plan was abandoned after the Normandie caught fire. Second; Shinano was not intended to be an "attack carrier", but to be a support ship, somewhat similar in function to the Royal Navy's HMS Unicorn.
Honestly Id say the Midways were the first supercarriers, Midway herself served during Operation Desert Storm and operated Hornets, which is not something to be coughed at for a ww2 carrier
Wow ! Did you know at that time it’s history ? Hard to believe a WW2 “Pig Boat” (that was what they were called when I saw them when I was living in Yokuska in 1958) was still working , thanks for the comment !
@@donlove3741 My brother was a cameraman for Movie tone news at the time. He took me and my father who was ex u.s n.with him.I was 13 and VERY seasick.
@@oceanhome2023 The crew were very proud of her history. She had been converted to a research ship at this stage and I think the oldest boat in the fleet.
Just yesterday I caught a video by Battleship New Jersey. Apparently the USS Kitty Hawk is now under tow to meet her fate at the ship breakers' yard. End of an era.
Are you sure it's the Kitty Hawk and not John F. Kennedy? BB New Jersey is in Camden NJ near where the JFK is moored. Kitty Hawk was last moored at Bremerton, Wa. I do know Kitty Hawk is scheduled to be scrapped but don't know how the NJ could have filmed it. You can see the demise of numerous carriers being scrapped in Brownsville, TX on Google Earth. I got to watch the Oriskany become an artificial reef and dive spot off the Fl panhandle.
I knew of this ship but never heard the complete story. The details were enlightening. The captain of it did all he could. He was a victim of poor intelligence and timid leadership.
The "Shitty Kitty", nickname of Kitty Hawk, was NOT the 1st Supercarrier. That was CV-59, the USS Forrestal. She was the lead ship of a 4 ship class and was commissioned 10/1/55. The Kitty Hawk, CV-63, was the lead of a 3 ship class and actually had a 4th modified as the JFK, CV-67. If your wondering why 9 numbers between CV-59 to CV-67 for 8 ships? CVN-65, The Mighty USS Enterprise.
@@jebise1126 Ut was a nickname that was a rhyming phrase as a slang term by the crew. A happy crew is a 'bitching' crew, therefore the name. I served aboard BOHICA (Bend Over Here It Comes Again) aka USS Nimitz (CVN 68). USS Forestall was Forestfire partly because of it's tragic fire during the Vietnam War and because it made good slang. Some ships have more complementary nicknames as USS Missouri is Mighty Mo or Big Mo which I served upon from 1985 to 1989. USS Enterprise was Big E and USS New Jersey is Big J.
@@ifga16 I was always partial to USS Wisconsin's Nickname "Whiskey", because after a collision in the late 50's her bow was caved in, and they simply cut it off and welded on the bow from her never finished sister ship, the USS Kentucky, that had been sitting unfinished like a big canoe since WW2.
Perhaps 35 years ago, my wife, Elaine answered a local newspaper ad for a typist to transcribe the handwritten notes of a WWII submarine captain. It turned out to be Capt. Enright, a wonderful man who has since passed on. RIP, Joe.
I see the humor in comparing a battleship conversion to the evolution of cruisers that are carriers. Raw size really is the only thing Shinano has in common. To be more serious, it is nice to see someone talking about Shinano, even people who know a fair bit about Yamato & Musashi forget about, or simply do not even know about Shinano.
Yeah. You are right although the author did a good job of explaining that Shinano was not a true fleet carrier. All battleship or battlecruiser conversations had inherent limitations due to hull design and original ship plans. Even the Lexington class carriers, considered probably the best conversion, showed real problems due to the original design. Even if she had completed her fitting out and became truly combat capable Shinano would never perform well enough to justify her huge expense.
@@tcofield1967 Well, there is that, but also, carriers are all, part of the lineage of cruisers. Ever wonder why they are CV (notice the C for Cruiser, V is simply fixed wing aircraft, best as anyone can tell, it was just an unused letter). Battleships are designed to be gun platforms above all else. So they tend to be built like a barrel. You can really see this with older ships-of-the-line in comparison to contemporary frigates. Cruisers, once they became a proper class instead of just a job description, favor speed and long legs. For cruisers this means long slender hull forms that are not the best at turning, but have great leangth:beam ratios, so they are fast. For battleships this means that they will have a relatively wide beam compared to their length. It makes them slower for the same power, but provides a more stable gun platform, makes it easier to maneuver, and provides room for the massive structure that is a battleship main battery barbette and a place for the machinery, magazines and armor (which is often a complex setup involving sloped armor, decapping layers and splinter/spalling protection.) Then you get some oddities like the extended bow of the Iowa class (which is there purely for the hydrodynamic benefit of a longer length in the length:beam ratio, the bows don't even have enough buoyancy for them to float on their own.) Battlecruisers tended to sit more in line with cruisers. (the "Large Cruiser" Alaska class, Alaska & Guam show this too, look for a photo of one of them docked right next to an Iowa). An earlier name occasionally used back in the time they were being used is telling: "dreadnought armed cruiser" meaning a cruiser with an all big gun design. (The difference with the CB ships is that they have guns much smaller than contemporary battleships, while battlecruisers would have guns of the same grade that contemporary battleships would have, often with a turret deleted from a battleship/battlecruiser pair like you see with the Royal Navy build program. Now to Shinano. Being a Yamato class ship, you can see from Yamato and Musashi that the hull form they were designed with are those barrel-esque battleship style hulls. That last bit there, was what my quip about comparing a battleship conversion to ships that actually are part of the lineage of cruisers. At least Lexington and Saratoga came from a battlecruiser design. Shinano in the end was a joke. A sign that battleships were dead, that the once mighty IJN now needed stopgap carriers. A support carrier with a tiny ability to strike? That is a really really bad joke for what was to be the third of the Yamatos. Not proper fleet carrier, not proper light carrier, not even an escort carrier (those can all fight), she ended up as an airplane transport). The only bigger joke that the IJN played back then was Taiho.... you know, that bit where doing damage control badly, turns the ship into a fuel-air bomb that decided it is a failure as a carrier, but will excel at becoming a ginormous bomb. (btw, if you want to see what a 1:1 on length:beam does, look at the Novgorod from Russia back in the 1870s or so, interesting ship tbh)
@@whyjnot420 I agree with about 90 percent of what you said here. Yes, aircraft carriers were designed to similar speed specs as cruisers but their hull design was similar but somewhat different. Even the Yorktown class carriers were longer and had a wider beam then later Baltimore class heavy cruisers. They had to be to maintain stability doe to higher center of gravity. As for cruisers vs battlecruisers the battlecruiser shares more in line with battleships than standard cruisers of the period. Propulsion, compartmentalization, and overall design were based off dreadnoughts, not the old armored cruiser designs of the period. If anything the CLs and CAs were influenced more by battlecruiser design than the other way around. Yes they were longer but if you look at the width the Rodney and the Hood were almost identical. The Renown and Queen Elizabeth were also identical. They just looked thinner because of the extended length and more efficient hull form. But cruisers were a different design all together. The biggest reason that the Alaskas were not considered BCs was less because of gun size and more because the ships were designed like cruisers. The Scharnhorst had a similar main battery but was considered a battlecruiser of fast battleship because of the design, not the armament.
There's an excellent book about this that I read several years ago. I don't recall the title, but it's worth a search for those who want to get more detail about how events transpired on both the Shinano and the Archerfish.
I've just bought a second hand copy of this book - Sea Assault by Captain Joseph F. Enright. I think the book was also published with a different title. It's an excellent read.
USS Forestall CV59 (launched 10 years before Kitty Hawk) was almost 200 feet longer than Shinano, and had a full load displacement over 10,000 tons greater.
Thank you! As a boy that worked alongside those wonderful WW2 vets, several that served in the PTO mentioned about fighting alongside the Aussies, and enjoying them as allies. What a generation those people were.
The first ship to test the angled deck concept (being a British invention) was HMS Triumph. This was followed by similar tests on the Midway however in both cases the angled deck was painted on rather than fitted. The first vessel physically fitted with an angled deck was USS Antietam. The first vessel completed (but not designed with) an angled deck was HMS Ark Royal followed later that same year by the Forrestal (designed with).
Yes, the FID was the first one CVA-59: she started off as the United States. Name after James Forrestal first Sectary of Defense after he jumped out the window of the Naval Hospital. No place like home Long Gray and Underway. :)
If memory serves and the book Shinano was accurate one of Capt. Enright's relatives was the Chaplain that wrote the weather prayer for Gen. Patton, during the Battle of the Bulge in Europe.
Muy buen documento sobre ese gran portaaviones...aunque hubiera agradecido algún mapa o esquema de la trayectoria del shinano y del submarino que lo hundió para apreciar mejor el ataque
Granted not a lot of specifics are known about the Shinano, since the Japanese burned all records of her. But from what little is known, she was not a Super Carrier. She was barely functional as a Carrier. The Japanese did not view her as a Combat Capable Carrier. Instead she was to be used as a "Support Carrier". A floating warehouse and repair shop for airplanes, to store planes, ammo and fuel for the other actual Fleet Carriers, and act as a sort of floating maintenance shop for aircraft. Here's the problem. For a WW2 Carrier to function properly it has to be able to properly flow and cycle aircraft. To do this at anything resembling the speeds needed to be combat capable requires 2 elevators. A forward Elevator and a rear one. A midships elevator is also a nice to have option. This way planes move forward on the flight deck and backwards on the hanger deck. The rear elevator brings them up to spot for launch. The planes launch, fly there mission and land. The rear half of the flight deck is for landing, the front half is for bringing landed planes back down to the hanger using the front elevator. The planes then move rearward through the hanger bay where they are repaired rearmed refueled and made ready for their next mission, where they can be brought up by the rear elevator to start the cycle again. Not being able to do this cripples a Carrier. The Carrier becomes a single launch only ship. She can launch 1 wave of planes. after which she needs to very slowly land her planes one at a time, clear the deck to use the single elevator to bring it down, then land the next etc. This is why when Enterprises forward elevator was badly damaged at Guadalcanal her planes could launch, but would then have to land at Henderson Field and spend the night before they could be very slowly rotated back to the carrier. Shinano had this problem. Shinano had at least 6 different Hangers spread over 3 decks. But none of the Hangers connected, and none had more than 1 elevator. So there was no ability to flow the aircraft through them. And most of the hangers shared its one elevator with at least 2 other hangers. The problem was the Barbettes. The massive round tubs meant to hold the 18.1" gun turrets of the Yamato class Battleships. The ship gets built around them. So Shinano had hers. With no way to remove them short of scrapping the ship. The Flight deck sat at the top of the Barbettes. The Barbettes carved up what needed to be a single broad open hanger space into lots of smaller unconnected spaces. Thus making her all but useless as a Carrier. The only thing Super about her was her appetite for fuel.
@@garfieldsmith332 The Shinano is a weird one for history. Everyone thinks 'OMG THE BIGGEST CARRIER EVER! SUPERWEAPON" because it was built on the third Yamato hull. But it really wasn't capable of operating as a Carrier. It only was converted to a Carrier because by that point in the war the Japanese Military Leadership was operating in that mode where you never admit mistakes or try and reverse course. You only go forward in ever more stupid ways. The saner heads in the Admiralty wanted the whole thing scrapped and its precious steel used to build quite a large number of Submarines. Which would have been Militarily Useful in defending Japan. But Pride meant they could not scrap one of the Mighty Yamatos! No matter how useless it might be.
@@andrewtaylor940 Yes, a hasty conversion. The military thinking at the time pf the army really worked against Japan. The navy saw the value of the aircraft carrier and the submarine. Never should have built the Yamato class. And to think they were looking at even bigger battleships. From what I have read the Yamato class early designs were even bigger size ships. Add to that pride there was also the warrior codes. Many captains and admirals went down with their ships and their experience was lost forever. Still the Shinano is an interesting in itself.
@@garfieldsmith332 There is a fantastic Japanese Movie about the political intrigues, infightings and absurdities involved in the High Command's decision to build the Yamato's. called "The Great War of Archimedes". It's sort of a dark satire. But the opening scene is possibly the best rendered and realized WW2 naval battle to be put on screen in the modern era. It shows the death of the Yamato in Operation Ten-Go in astonishing detail and accuracy. It really stands out when viewed next to the horrible Roland Emmerich Midway movie (which I will grant was very respectful of the actual named people, but the CGI and accuracy was horrible). It's from Toho, the Godzilla people.
I have never seen a war documentary without a single map, chart or video clip, basically with nothing more than narrations accompanied with static photos (also without captions of what they actually show) panning in different directions. So very well done.
Not twice the size, twice the mass! When people think of size they usually think of dimensions/volume. While the Shinano was certainly wider than the Essex class, it wasn't that much wider and they were of similar length.
A pretty nice video, I'll add that the corners cut during the construction was due to the admirality pushing up the time table considerably and accepting zero excuses essentially setting the date it would sail and be commissioned ahead of time, furthermore the bulkheads and many compartments had not been air tested to make sure they were truly sealed, so this thing set sail in an abysmal state and to add to that, the crew had not had time to learn the ship, and much less about the systems on board, the portable pumps were unfamiliar to them as well as the fact that the speed was kept up for way too long and that had the effect of literally flooding the ship faster, always a good thing when you're the late war IJN
Shinano was not a supercarrier, it was designed as a transport carrier and had a smaller air wing than the Hiryu. Most of the aircraft it carried were meant for other stations, or to resuply fleet carriers to in the fleet.
That would have been a different ship. The battleship Scharnhorst was sunk at the Battle of the North Cape on Dec. 26, 1943. It struck me as odd too that there was mention of it being converted to a carrier.
_Shinano_ was a converted battleship, and had an aircraft complement half that of the contemporary American _Essex_ carriers, so there was nothing "super" about it. It had very little in common with _Kitty Hawk_ (other than also having a flight deck).
The sinking of the Shinano must be equally credited to Task Forces that had so devastated the Japanese carrier fleet so as to inspire desperate decisions by the depleted / discombobulated IJN leadership.
The first was the USS Forrestal CV-59. And for the record Shinano was not even finished. She had not even fired a shot. She was still awaiting fitting out. So this article is missing on several levels of facts.
Did you ever get the feeling that fate was against Japan and its quest to build the biggest battleships and the biggest carrier. It's almost as if it was Destiny for them to fail. Just think if they could have succeeded and instead of building two super battleships built three supercarriers and had used them at the Battle of Midway instead of what they did. How would that have changed history?
Bad executive decisions always lead to catastrophe. This story is a prime example. If the Shinano was completed in all aspects of safety and construction correctly in what direction would in the Pacific war have taken?
Sir @@DaveSCameron ? 🙋🏻♀️ I stood silently in front of you for more than five minutes AFTER you wrote your comment, all the time thinking you would say more. Since you did not say anything more afterwards I began to feel? you know, kind of silly standing in front of you, …? and I want to go purchase a hamburger now anyway, so …, I gotta go, and #aHatTip 💂🏻♀️ good day.
@@hanscyrus My good man why on God's green earth didn't you just say? I often self regulate my posts by not wanting to lose any readers by jangling away for multiple paragraphs but do enjoy your hamburger there and perhaps you could pop me a line or two regarding its value and enjoyment Sir? Best wishes 🙏
Sir@@DaveSCameron …, I'm sorry you feel that way. I'm a big fan of specifically World War II videos, and the testimonials of those who engaged in the major campaigns. I had thought of inside the initial comment utilizing the goof of asking you if perhaps a couple hours drinking coffee at a #starbucks or at Joe's Tavern destroying a bottle of brandy chatting together would be kind of …? fun, I guess. Because I know any stranger I've ever met would be immediately tipped off by such a insincere proposal such as me right out of the clear blue sky then asking you to chat. 🍺 + (💁🏻♀️📝) = ⁉️ Truth be told I was practicing my scriptwriting techniques upon you, and again, I extend my sincere apologies for disturbing you, to you 🙋🏻♀️ #farewell, then … .
@@hanscyrus I too am sad to hear you feel like this, as I etched nothing to prompt this but best wishes working on the prose, keep at it and you'll reap the rewards, love and Light comrade ✌️👍📚
Filipino here. Here's my modern take for a fictional philippine fleet: -deck length extended to maybe 842ft, -had elertric catapult system, -machinery comparable to today's naval ships, -5 in. dp guns; usually found on US navy destroyers and cruisers, -equivalent no. of 25mm bushmaster guns (single manned mount, twin unmanned mount slaved to singles, & tripple unmanned mount controlled by cic; though the twins can be controlled by cic in emergency), -either 5 in. guided, dual-purpose rockets or dedicated missile system for AA/surface role, -modern search and track radars -one sonar array in redesigned bulbous bow, & individual ones running along the hull As for whatever it originally carried, i'll leave it out as comment's already too long. I'll leave it to your imagination.
A pity for Japan that its forward thinking on naval aviation didn't extend to managing to scrap the whole Yamato class in favour of putting 6-8 more Shokakus in the water right by the start of the war, with aircraft and pilots to match. Or building up yard capacity. Or submarines. Or escort vessels. Or myriad other things. Probably all still too little too late to match American latent capacity, but still. Not that all three weren't impressive- maybe if all three were made as carriers they'd really have been something, especially if in the water faster, as they could have been if built as carriers. As it was- all that energy, all that magnificent vessel, in commission for ten days, sailing solely to hide it from air attack, only to chance on a submarine. What a colossal waste of men, material, energy and time.
It might have prolonged the war but the fundamental problem was the US could afford to replace it's losses in terms of pilots and planes and Japan could not. As the war when on Japan ended with up with carriers but few planes or pilots to fill them. Ironically, having more empty carriers would be more of a hinderence than fewer empty carriers and more battleships. That said, Japanese battleships, esp the Yamato-class, also had logistical problems as the war went on Japan struggled to fuel these ships making it difficult for them to sail out to meet the enemy so, either way, Japan was doomed with the first bomb that fell on Pearl Harbor and many of the Japanese commanders knew it.
Apparently pilots had a tendency to turn left when landing on airstrips, that and several other reasons that are better explained in Drachinifel's videos about the history of Naval carriers.
The Japanese for a while toyed with the idea of operating carriers in close pairs, with mirror imaged air traffic patterns, and mirror imaged islands seemed like a good idea. They'd abandoned all that by the time the Shokakus were built.
Yeah I would not consider the Shinano a super carrier. One it was a converted ship, two the Midway class was a larger ship but not lighter, three the Lexington class even being a conversion itself was longer then the Shinano.
All of them, modern ships literally don't have armor and rely on sensors and other countermeasures to defend themselves. So if they go back to ww2 and get into battleships range, modern ships most likely go down.
Yes I liked the video very much. But the narrator had some problems: ¹A vocal pattern like a sensationalist newscaster. Just relax, fellow! ²The narrator's pronunciation of Yokosuka and some other Japanese names. Including that of the main character in this narration. You need to meet with some veterans of the Pacific Theater.
8:35 - Iowas were about 2/3 the displacement (which is different than size) of the Yamatos, though the Iowa hull was longer and had a deeper draft, The Yamatos had a wider beam 23:00 - "Largest carrier ever build until Kitty Hawk" - By what measure? Really, I want to know.? Air wing - nearly half that of an Lexington (Though larger than an Independence LIGHT carrier) Displacement? Forrestal at full load has that beat in '55. Length? Essex had that came length (ish) in '41. Shinano was slow, under equipped, and no where ready to fight in late '44, even as planned as a support carrier. If she was in service in '41 as a support carrier flying CAP, maybe things would have gone better at Coral Sea, and may have salvaged Midway. Hindsight as it is, if the resources to get Shinano under steam as a carrier in lat '44 was applied to submarine technology and production, the U.S. and European powers would have had a far harder task of winning the Pacific.
I find it odd that an Independence class light carrier would carry only 30 aircraft and a Casablanca class escort carrier would be credited with 27 aircraft? Sites I have read in the past put the Light Carrier at between 45-48 aircraft?
At the same time Nagato and Mutsu came into IJN service, the HMS Hood and the two Nelson class battleships came into RN service, and the three Colorado class BBs came into USN service. Except for HMS Hood, all had 16" guns (Hood's were 15"). They still fit in an era of fabric-covered biplanes that could carry very limited munitions weight, IMO. Taranto and the Pearl Harbor attack were two decades in the future and more dream than foreseeable.
aw yes the shinano the world first super carrier I feel like it would be better to not find her to keep people interested in the the mysterious super carrier that set out to defend her home land and was never seen again
japans carriers in ww2 are powerful the battleship yamato is just the same power of the shinano shinano is sopose to be a battleship but it was been cancel because for the battleship yamato with shinano it was the most powerful carrier in japanese history will be always remember
The background humming noise is really distracting. Interesting topic, but had to stop watching at around 8:00 into the video due to the droning hum noise.
Great Vid and much I never knew about this Carrier only a long time ago seeing it in Model form with a model maker who specialized on Japanese WW2 Ships , it was enormous , and I Sub'd as the vid's are well doc'd and the Narration is fast well paced and aggressive just add's to the format.
Once again, all of you hysterical historical sites: It is not, i repeat, NOT pronounced Yoko-soo-ka. It is pronounced Yo-koo-ska Japan. But I was stationed there only two years, so what do I know..
I ask myself if you just haven't factchecked or just don't give a shit? Even if the there was no major battleships battle during the first world war, the battleships of the Royal Navy did exactly what they are build for. Cutting off the enemies access to the sea, only by their existence. And until the mid 1930th aircraft hadn't the range, speed, bomb load or the marksmanship to attack battleships or fulfil there duties. And until the battle of the Coral Sea the hole aircraft carrier thing was just a theory. 6:25 During the Manchuria Conflict the Japanese Navy didn't gain any experience because it didn't participate into the operation of the Imperial Army. 🤣🙂 11:28 The Scharnhorst had no attribute to its name, so no SS. And if she had an attribute it would be TS because she was a turbine (electric) ship not a steam ship. After this I stopped to watch this video because I wouldn't believe the author at all.
@@charles1964 Taranto and Pearl Harbor were no sea battles. They didn't prove the aircraft carrier was a replacement for the battleship. They proved the carrier was very good to do precision attacks on enemy targets near the sea, if the target had no proper air defence or being totally surprised. Just a year later four carriers weren't even able to knock out the airstrip of the tiny Marshall Islands.
@@allangibson2408 I was thinking that too, but pogonator1 makes it sound as though the Battleship's primary use was Battleship to Battleship combat, never mind Shore Bombardment or AA screen for the fast carriers. According to pogonator1, "Taranto and Pearl Harbor were no sea battles" so why bother responding with HMS' Repulse and Prince of Wales? as they were both Sunk by Land Based Aircraft....
When the captain of the Archerfish reported the attack to navy officials they refused to believe that such a carrier existed. It wasn't until after the war and examination of Japanese records that the sub was credited with sinking more tonnage in one day than most other subs sank during the whole war.
@@timwhitten9918 That it took the navy brass so long to finally accept that their torpedoes were failing to detonate is tragic and hard to believe. The adoption of the Higgin's boat met similar resistance. Semper Fi!
@@thomascampbell4730 I believe the brass in charge of ordinance had a hand in the magnetic influence devices development and didn’t believe his device was faulty. That’s why it took so long to get the problem fixed. He was berated by at least a couple of sub commanders
