militaryaircraft

On May 8, 1942, the first Carrier VS Carrier battle climaxed between the US Navy and Imperial Japan. For the past 4 days the two fleets had been on a collision course.

On May 8, 1942, the first Carrier VS Carrier battle climaxed between the US Navy and Imperial Japan. For the past 4 days the two fleets had been on a collision course. A lot has been written about this historic fight, and we in no way presume to rewrite all the excellent work which has been done on the battle. ù

What we will do is attempt to show how historic an engagement Coral Sea was, as two navies who both were Pioneers of Aircraft Carrier Technology met to engage in History’s First Carrier vs Carrier Battle between two Adversaries who fought OVER THE HORIZON, with neither side’s ships ever physically seeing the other. Coral Sea marks the first time such an event occurred, discounting the loss of HMS Hermes to the overwhelming force of Imperial Japan’s Kido Butai in the Indian Ocean the previous month.

Coral Sea marked the first time BOTH sides had Carriers with full Air Groups. On Imperial Japan’s side was the Shokaku and Zuikaku, newest and most powerful Carriers in the Imperial Fleet. Facing them were Lexington and Yorktown, the one America’s first real Aircraft Carrier, and the other the nameship of the best class of American Prewar Aircraft Carriers.

Aviators on both sides faced launching on sorties to find a moving target at sea, in the middle of a Big Ocean, fighting their way to their targets, thence returning to an unknown and variable Carrier’s Position of Intended Movement, referred to as “Point Option” at the end of their Mission. They did so using navigation aids as simple as mechanical flight computers, the plotting board on their instrument panel, and Radio Direction Finders to home in on their ship.

Both sides would blunder into an action neither side really knew how to fight. Errors would be made on both sides as each realized they were facing carriers on the opposite side. The US would launch a strike and sink the first Carrier lost by Imperial Japan, the luckless Shoho covering the Imperial Navy’s Port Moresby Landing Force.

The Imperial Japanese would batter the oiler Neosho and sink her luckless escort, the destroyer Sims. The Imperial Japanese would also launch a late day attack against the American carrier fleet which ended in the strike getting lost in the gloomy weather surrounding both Task Forces, and incredibly, several Imperial Japanese strike aircraft would actually be shot down while attempting to join the landing circuit for the AMERICAN Task Force.

Things would come to a head on May 8, when Both sides made the all important discovery of the other’s position and send strikes to neutralize the other. The result would be Shokaku receiving damage to her flight deck, Zuikaku losing most of her Air Group, and the US Navy losing Lexington. Thus two carriers were lost in the first Carrier VS Carrier Battle ever fought between two navies, one light carrier for Imperial Japan, and the pioneer of much of prewar American Naval Aviation operations on the US Side.

As Navy Ace and future 4-Star Admiral Noel Gayler quipped in John Lundstrom’s excellent book The First Team “Twas a rugged day to be flying the Wily Wildcat.” The Lexington remains on the bottom of the Coral Sea, in waters deep enough to retain her gray paint and the markings on her aircraft. She stands as a monument to the lives lost, as Aviators sacrificed themselves to perfect a doctrine still being developed as both sides made the ultimate Test of their carrier technology.

Strategically, the Battle remains an American Victory, as Port Moresby’s seaward invasion was repulsed, and Imperial Japan had to fight across the Owen Stanley Mountains overland, rather than capture the main port in New Guinea. Both Navy’s would face again the following month, though the mauling of Shokaku and the losses to Zuikaku aircrew kept both carriers of CarDiv5 out of Midway. Meanwhile, Yorktown, damaged by a single bomb, would be repaired in time for Round 2 of the 1942 Carrier World Cup at Midway.

Be sure to check out William Cobb’s Facebook Page Pensacola Aerospace Museum for awesome aviation’s photos and stories.

Photo by: U.S. Navy and Hangar B Productions

‘At this stage Hermes had a very heavy list to port and it was obvious that she was about to sink. As the sea was now only feet below our gun deck I gave the order “over the side lads, every man for himself, good luck to you all,”’ Sam Curtis, Royal Navy

The life of HMS Hermes, or as we shall call her, Hermes 21, was still a life full of adventure. Designed in the aftermath of the Great War, with the benefit of the Royal Navy’s experience with carrier operations during that conflict, the Hermes was designed from the keel up to be an aircraft carrier. As such she had an Island Superstructure, offset to the side, something which allowed her to have a bridge like a traditional warship without her superstructure getting in the way or causing wind interference.

Hermes pioneered carrier operations in the Royal Navy along her step sister, the converted Battleship HMS Eagle. Prewar, the Royal Navy both benefited and was hindered by pioneering Carrier operations. They had HMS Argus, whose flatiron like appearance influenced the design of America’s first carrier USS Langley. However, the British also had HMS Furious, which had been built as a Battle Cruiser for Lord Fisher’s Baltic Project and was converted into a carrier by building a flight deck forward. She could launch aircraft but recovery was a dicey affair, with only one pilot capable of doing so, Sqd. Leader Dunning, who managed to sideslip aboard but died trying to repeat that feat.

Furious had her after deck cleared as well, and retained her bridge and superstructure amidships, but this caused so many air currents that aircraft were rarely able to land on her flight deck aft. Still, Furious achieved the unique distinction of being the first Aircraft Carrier to launch aircraft into combat, sending her flight of Sopwith Camels on a special mission against German Zeppelin sheds in Tondern, Germany in mid 1918.

Hermes was designed with the benefit of this hard earned experience, and her island superstructure was similarly adapted on HMS Eagle. Unlike pre flush flight deck Furious, Hermes was designed to Launch AND recover aircraft. An experimental Carrier HMS Argus was constructed with a complete flush deck, and ironically Furious was fitted with a minimal island as well when razeed into a true Carrier. Still, Hermes paved the way for carrier designs ever since. For the two decades in the 1920s and 30s, she alternated with Eagle on the China Station, while Furious’s half sisters Courageous and Glorious did the same in the Med. Hermes pioneered a unique mission during her time in the China Station, Aircraft Carrier Anti Piracy Operations.

The specter of Silver Winged aircraft of the British Empire hunting down Chinese pirates during the roaring 20s has enough of a hook to send storytellers scrambling to write screenplays. Yet Hermes actually performed this mission while on the China Station, and later helped maintain British interests while Imperial Japan began expanding the scope of their own interests there. This erupted into a series of incidents flaring up into the Manchuria Incident of 1931 and later the Shanghai Incident of 1937, which marked the beginning of Japan’s war of conquest in China.

As war clouds loomed in Europe, Hermes was recalled home, but still served a useful role as a kind of auxiliary carrier. Relatively small at only 600 ft, about 25 percent smaller than most contemporary WW2 carriers, Hermes was a relatively lightweight cruiser carrier, displacing only 10,000 tons at “Standard” displacement and around 13,000 at full. This gave her only a third of the displacement of the Giant American Lexingtons and Japanese Akagi/Kaga cousin carriers. Her “stepsister” Eagle, shared no design relation, Eagle was a converted Chilean Battleship that had been taken over at the start of WW1 and kept by the Royal Navy after being converted to a carrier during the War. Hermes was built as another sort of experiment, a ship that would carry a similarly sized air group without a battleship’s 20,000 plus tons of displacement.

Her designers succeeded, though Hermes was rather small by the end of her career. She served well as an auxiliary carrier a la Ryujo, but not so much as a first line battle carrier. Hermes was a fine presence ship and a useful counterinsurgency vessel, both over China Prewar and against Iraqi rebels in 1941. While roaming round the backwaters of the world looking for Pirates or later Surface Raiders, she had her uses, but when facing the World’s most powerful carrier task force at the time, she was clearly out of her element.

After the near miss between Formidable and Indomitable vs the Kido Butai on 5 April, 1942, Hermes’s Days were numbered. Rear Admiral Yamaguchi Tamon’s Dragons of CarDiv 2 had hunted down and sunk Cornwall and Dorsetshire, but those two cruisers frantic maneuvering soaked up their attacks and allowed the British carriers time to escape. Meanwhile, Hermes had lost a significant portion of her Torpedo Bomber compliment on Ceylon and was operating with a minimal air group to begin with. She was sent to the opposite side of the island to Trincomalee in the wake of the attack on Columbo to prepare to serve in the upcoming Royal Navy invasion of Vichy French Madagascar, a continuation of the proud British Military tradition to wage war against the French for at least once per century dating back to the Hundred Years War.

When the Kido Butai returned to strike the Royal Navy Base at Trincomalee, the Hermes sortied from the Harbour in company with HMAS Vampire, a veteran of the what was nicknamed the “scrap iron” Flotilla off North Africa. Sadly, an old carrier and scrap iron escort were no match for the such a force and when found the end was all but inevitable.

According to the survivor’s report by Survivor Sam Curtis appeared on BBC;

‘We waited and waited but no aircraft put in an appearance, only Japanese. At 10.30am we had the report, “enemy aircraft in sight” immediately our A.A. opened up, Hermes was a sitting duck, our anti aircraft defence was inadequate against the number of dive bombers that attacked us, there were 85 of them. Zero dive bombers each carrying a 250lb bomb that was delay fused, they went through our flight deck (we had no armour plating) exploding below decks.

‘The planes dived out of the sun and apart from a few near misses every bomb was on target, they went through our flight deck like sticking your finger through tissue paper causing absolute destruction below decks. One of the first casualties was our forward lift, it received a direct hit, was blown 10ft in the air to land upside down on the flight deck eventually sliding into the sea, all personnel in that area were instantly killed.

‘Wave after wave of these Zeros came at us. Our Captain was doing his best to dodge the bombs by using the speed of the ship. We were moving flat out at about 20-25 knots shuddering from stem to stern, not only from the speed, but from the continual pounding we were getting from those little “Sons of Nippon” up in the air. Where oh where was our fighter cover, we never did get any. Up until then we had a commentary of what was happening up top.

‘The AA guns crews did a magnificent job and to assist them because the planes at the end of their dive flew along the flight deck to drop their bombs and because the guns could not be fired at that low angle, all the 5.5.`s, mine included had orders to elevate to the maximum so that as the ship slewed from side to side to fire at will hoping that the shrapnel from the shells would cause some damage to the never ending stream of bombers that were hurtling down out of the sun to tear the guts out of my ship that had been my home for the past 3 years.

‘Suddenly there was an almighty explosion that seemed to lift us out of the water, the after magazine had gone up, then another, this time above us on the starboard side, from that moment onwards we had no further communication with the bridge which had received a direct hit, as a result of that our Captain and all bridge personnel were killed.

‘Only about fifteen minutes had passed since the start of the action and the ship was already listing to port, fires were raging in the hanger, she was on fire from stem to stern, just aft of my gun position was the galley, that received a direct hit also, minutes later we had a near miss alongside our gun, talk about a tidal wave coming aboard, our crew were flung yards, tossed like corks on a pond. Picking myself up and finding no bones broken, I called out to each number of our crew and got an answer from all of them (no-one washed overboard), we were lucky; our gun was the only one that did not get hit.

‘At this stage Hermes had a very heavy list to port and it was obvious that she was about to sink. As the sea was now only feet below our gun deck I gave the order “over the side lads, every man for himself, good luck to you all”.

‘Abandon ship had previously been given by word of mouth, the lads went over the side and I followed, hitting the water at 11.00 hours, this is the time my wristwatch stopped (I didn’t have a waterproof one).

‘As she was sinking the Japs were still dropping bombs on her and machine gunning the lads in the water. In the water I swam away from the ship as fast as I could, the ship still had way on and I wanted to get clear of the screws and also because bombs were still exploding close to the ship, the force of the explosions would rupture your stomach, quite a few of the lads were lost in this way after surviving Dante’s Inferno aboard, so it was head down and away.’

Though Curtis misidentifies the Aichi D3A dive bombers as Zero Bombers, his report clearly shows why the Hermes was sunk so quickly. No ship on earth could outmaneuver a force of 85 dive Bombers launched from the most powerful carrier strike force on earth. Because Hermes didn’t have her compliment of aircraft this was not a true Carrier vs Carrier battle, but it did mark the first time an Aircraft Carrier had been sunk by one of its own kind.

The opportunity to do that again would come the following month, but only part of the Kido Butai would participate in the world’s first true Carrier vs Carrier Battle. Still, Hermes, long serving veteran of the China Station, was gone. Another would rise in her place and 40 years later be on her way to another unexpected conflict zone, but that is another story……

Be sure to check out William Cobb’s Facebook Page Pensacola Aerospace Museum for awesome aviation’s photos and stories.

Photo by U.S. Navy and Crown Copyright

The US Navy is currently studying extending the service lives of the oldest Nimitz-class aircraft carriers

The US Navy is currently studying extending the service lives of the oldest Nimitz-class aircraft carriers, Jay Stefany, who is currently performing the duties of the assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, told reporters in a phone call on Apr. 20, 2022.

“I don’t know when that’s due to be reported out, but that is part of our [Program Objective Memorandum] 24 efforts that we’re working on now is how that would play out as far as potentially extending at least a couple of the first Nimitzs,” Stefany said of the study.

According to USNI News, while the Navy’s Fiscal Year 2023 30-year shipbuilding plan shows the service decommissioning USS Nimitz (CVN-68) in FY 2025 and USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) in FY 2027 – which aligns with the carriers’ 50-year service lives – the Navy still has time to alter that plan if necessary.

Vice Adm. Scott Conn, the deputy chief of naval operations for warfighting requirements and capabilities (OPNAV N9), said during the same media call that “Nimitz was supposed to go into a late Fiscal Year ’23 [availability] where the extension could have been done. Bottom line is we will revisit Nimitz as part of the FY-24 shipbuilding plan.”

Conn described extending the lives of any of the Nimitz-class carriers as “pre-decisional.”

“There are questions based on real-world events – does it make sense? Based on the number of planned carriers we may have in maintenance in certain years, it may make sense and maybe worth the return on investment of getting another year or more from the carriers that we have,” he said.

The Navy has been mulling extensions for the Nimitz-class carriers for the last few years. In September 2020, Program Executive Officer for Carriers Rear Adm. James Downey said Nimitz had more potential beyond its scheduled timeline and that it could be in service from 52 to 55 years.

The U.S. Navy 10 Nimitz-class aircraft carriers, USS Nimitz (CVN 68), USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69), USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70), USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71), USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72), USS George Washington (CVN 73), USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74), USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75), USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) and USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77), are the largest warships in the world, each designed for an approximately 50-year service life with just a single mid-life refueling. The next generation of aircraft carrier, the Gerald R. Ford-class (CVN 78) was ordered in September 2008 as the force structure replacement for USS Enterprise (CVN 65), which inactivated in 2012.

The typical air wing aboard a US Navy aircraft carrier consists of:

• Four Strike Fighter (VFA) Squadrons, with twelve F/A-18E/F Super Hornets each [One squadron of Super Hornets will be replaced by a squadron with ten Navy or USMC F-35C Lightning IIs in the near future. Actually, ten F-35Cs belonging to the VFA-147, the first active-duty US Navy Lightning II unit, have recently completed their first operational deployment aboard an aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70). Moreover 10 Marine Corps F-35Cs from the “Black Knights” of Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 314 (VMFA-314), the first USMC F-35C Squadron, are currently aboard USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72)].
• One Electronic Attack (VAQ) Squadron, made up of five EA-18G Growlers.
• One Carrier Airborne Early Warning (VAW) Squadron, with four E-2C Hawkeyes or five E-2D “Advanced” Hawkeyes.
• One Helicopter Sea Combat (HSC) Squadron of eight MH-60S Seahawks.
• One Helicopter Maritime Strike (HSM) Squadron of eleven MH-60R Seahawks, 3–5 of which are typically based in detachments on other ships of the carrier strike group.
• A Fleet Logistics Support (VRC) Squadron Detachment of two C-2A Greyhounds.

Photo by: U.S. Navy

The Imperial Japanese Navy carrier Ryujo was a unique, one-off hybrid of a cruiser hull with an aircraft carrier superstructure grafted on to it

The Imperial Japanese Navy carrier Ryujo was a unique, one-off hybrid of a cruiser hull with an aircraft carrier superstructure grafted onto it. Built in order to exploit a loophole in the original Washington Naval Treaty that stated ships under 10,000 tons wouldn’t be counted against Capital Ship limits, the lightweight Ryujo was designed to displace only 8,000 tons, and thus not be counted against Imperial Japan’s treaty limits.

Unfortunately for that attempt to circumvent treaty limits, that loophole was closed by the 1931 London Naval Treaty, Had the loophole remained, the Ryujo might have found herself as the lead ship of a swarm of these early “through Deck Cruisers” (to use a similarly sneaky Admiralty term for the Invincible Class). Instead, the window to this plan was shut and Ryujo found herself a kind of an orphan ship. Lightweight, a flush flight deck, and a Bridge at the front of her Hangar Structure, the Ryujo suffered from the kind of seakeeping flaws inherent in such an arrangement.

The Ship suffered serious damage in the 1934 Fourth Fleet Incident, where the Imperial Navy’s Fleet of that name sailed into the teeth of a Typhoon, losing several ships and sustaining serious damage in the process. This lesson served Ryujo well, her structure was strengthened, and she went on to serve off China during the China incident. Because she wasn’t as seaworthy as her larger cousins who later made up the Kido Butai, she found herself assigned to support duties, which made better use of her strengths than assignment to the Kido Butai.

In many ways, Ryujo was a forerunner of the later American CVL class of Light Carriers. With cruiser hulls and a similarly sized Air Group, both types provided useful auxiliaries to their larger cousins. A light carrier can stand in for a regular carrier in areas where the full strength of a regular Carrier Air Group isn’t necessary, a lesson the United States Navy is taking to heart today as it begins equipping its LHD Amphibious assault ships as new proto CVL’s with enhanced Marine F-35B Air Wings. These modern ships can serve a useful role in performing a mission set similar to that of Ryujo during the first 9 months of the Second World War.

Ryujo launched the first Imperial Japanese Navy Air Strike on U.S. forces in the Philippines on 8 December 1941, finding the seaplane tender U.S.S. William B. Preston at Davao Gulf at 0800. Her air group comprised of Mitsubishi A5M2 fighters and Nakajima B5N1 carrier attack aircraft, second-line equipment but still useful in light of her secondary support role for Imperial Navy amphibious forces. Ryujo managed to lose one of each in its first strike but managed to destroy 2 U.S. Navy PBY-4s which had remained behind near Preston when word of the outbreak of war had been received.

According to Pacific Wrecks;

On December 8, 1941, in the morning, Catalina and PBY Catalina 1230 were moored in Malalag Bay off Davao Del Sur. Shortly before 8:00 a.m., nine Japanese fighters strafed both flying boats sinking them both.

US Navy official history adds:

[Japanese fighters] “strafed the helpless PBYs, turning them into colanders of metal and fabric and setting them afire… Ensign Robert Tills died in the fusillade of bullets.”

Aside from that sad historic first, Ryujo subsequently covered Imperial Japanese Navy landings in the Gulf of Davao, before going on to help support further operations during Imperial Japan’s conquest of the Dutch East Indies. During these operations, she destroyed the wreck of the Dutch Destroyer Van Ghent, which had run aground a few days prior. In the wake of the Battle of Java Sea, Ryujo chased remnants of Allied Warships attempting to escape South of the Malay Barrier to Ceylon and Australia, catching H.M.S. Exeter and assisting in her sinking. In addition, Ryujo caught the destroyer U.S.S. Pope, and her aircraft assisted in that sinking as well.

During the Indian Ocean Raid of April 1942, Ryujo operated independently with what was called the Malay Group, joining a cruiser force to independently cruise after allied shipping.

Altogether, the Malay Force (consisting of Ryujo, six cruisers, and four destroyers) sank 19 ships totaling almost 100,000 gross register tons (GRT), before reuniting on 7 April and arriving at Singapore on 11 April.

Ryujo then teamed up with the converted ocean liner carrier Junyo to form Carrier Division 4, which was sent on Yamamoto’s diversion to the Aleutian Islands. Much has been written about how valuable those extra two carriers would have been at Midway, but their speeds and seakeeping ability weren’t on the same level, and in this case, they probably were better utilized as the diversion force they were meant to be. Ryujo’s Air Group was also upgraded to include Zeros, a mixed blessing for Imperial Japan as her Alaska assignment would prove.

Ryujo managed to perform her mission in Alaska bombing Dutch Harbor as part of her Diversionary Mission.

According to Wikipedia, at dawn on 3 June, she launched nine B5Ns, escorted by six Zeros, to attack Dutch Harbor on Unalaska Island. One B5N crashed on takeoff but six of the B5Ns and all of the Zeros were able to make it through the bad weather, destroying two PBYs and inflicting significant damage on the oil storage tanks and barracks. A second airstrike was launched later in the day to attack a group of destroyers discovered by aircraft from the first attack, but they failed to find the targets. One Zero from Ryujo from the second strike was damaged by a Curtiss P-40 and crash-landed on the island of Akutan. The aircraft, later dubbed the Akutan Zero, remained largely intact and was later salvaged and test-flown. On the following day, the two carriers launched another airstrike, consisting of 15 Zeros, 11 D3As, and 6 B5Ns, which successfully bombed Dutch Harbor. Shortly after the aircraft were launched, the Americans attacked the carriers but failed to inflict any damage. A Martin B-26 Marauder bomber and a PBY were shot down by Zeros, and a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bomber was shot down by flak during the attack.

Ryujo arrived back at Mutsu Bay on 24 June and departed for the Aleutians four days later to cover the second reinforcement convoy to Attu and Kiska Islands and remained in the area until 7 July in case of an American counterattack. She arrived at Kure on 13 July for a refit and was transferred to Carrier Division 2 a day later.

As can be seen, Ryujo managed to give a priceless gift to the American War effort, the Akutan Zero, which was salvaged and put through its paces as the first Captured Zero to make it back to the Continental USA (another had been rebuilt in China by Claire Chennault’s maintenance crew.). When the U.S. Invaded Guadalcanal, Ryujo was summoned south and was assigned to Carrier Division 1, with Shokaku and Zuikaku, which were finally ready for combat after the Midway debacle. On August 24, 1942, Ryujo was sent on a final independent mission, to perform an air strike against Henderson Field, Guadalcanal. Her mission would result in a combat situation that echoed the Battle of Coral Sea in its own unique way.

Per Wiki;

Ryujo launched two small airstrikes, totaling 6 B5Ns and 15 Zeros, beginning at 12:20 once the Diversionary Force was 200 nautical miles (370 km; 230 mi) north of Lunga Point. Four Grumman F4F Wildcat fighters from Marine Fighter Squadron VMF-223 on combat air patrol (CAP) near Henderson Field spotted the incoming Japanese aircraft around 14:20 and alerted the defenders. Ten more Wildcats from VMF-223 and VMF-212 scrambled, as well as 2 United States Army Air Corps Bell P-400s from the 67th Fighter Squadron in response. Nine of the Zeros strafed the airfield while the B5Ns bombed it with 60-kilogram (130 lb) bombs to little effect. The Americans claimed to have shot down 19 aircraft, but only three Zeros and three B5Ns were lost, with another B5N forced to crash-land. Only three Wildcats were shot down in turn.

Around 14:40, the Detached Force was spotted again by several search aircraft from the carrier USS Enterprise; the Japanese ships did not immediately spot the Americans. They launched three Zeros for a combat air patrol at 14:55, three minutes before two of the searching Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bombers narrowly missed Ryujo 150 meters (490 ft) astern with four 500-pound (230 kg) bombs. Two more Zeros reinforced the patrol shortly after 15:00, just in time to intercept two more searching Avengers, shooting down one. In the meantime, the carrier USS Saratoga had launched an airstrike against the Detached Force in the early afternoon that consisted of 31 Douglas SBD Dauntlesses and 8 Avengers; the long-range precluded fighter escort. They found the carrier shortly afterward and attacked. They hit Ryujo three times with 1,000-pound (450 kg) bombs and one torpedo; the torpedo hit flooded the starboard engine and boiler rooms. No aircraft from either Ryujo or Saratoga were shot down in the attack.

The bomb hits set the carrier on fire and she took on a list from the flooding caused by the torpedo hit. Ryujo turned north at 14:08, but her list continued to increase even after the fires were put out. The progressive flooding disabled her machinery and caused her to stop at 14:20. The order to abandon ship was given at 15:15 and the destroyer Amatsukaze moved alongside to rescue the crew. The ships were bombed several times by multiple B-17s without effect before Ryujo capsized about 17:55 at coordinates 06°10′S 160°50′ECoordinates: 06°10′S 160°50′E with the loss of 7 officers and 113 crewmen. Fourteen aircraft that she had dispatched on raids returned shortly after Ryujo sank and circled over the force until they were forced to ditch. Seven pilots were rescued.

Check out the Facebook Page of Pensacola Aerospace Museum for further photos and stories.

Photo by: U.S. Navy