Kaga found UPDATE: Akagi too

[WLJ]

Add another to the sunk WW-II carriers found

Hopefully they'll find the Akagi, Soryu and Hiryu soon since they should be in the same general area, although Hiryu should be a bit further to the west.
USS Yorktown was found some years ago

Deep-sea explorers find wreck of Japanese Second World War aircraft carrier sunk in pivotal Battle of Midway
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/rv-petrel-battle-midway-kaga-wreck-aircraft-carrier-ww2-paul-allen-a9161481.html

[K Frame]

The have announced that they think they found Akagi this weekend.

2 more to find.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

[charby]

How long until someone comes along and mine them for pre atomic bomb steel.

[WLJ]

The have announced that they think they found Akagi this weekend.

2 more to find.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/21/humbling-wreckage-of-japanese-ships-from-battle-of-midway-found-in-pacific

[WLJ]

How long until someone comes along and mine them for pre atomic bomb steel.

The Midway wrecks are pretty deep, 18,000ft or so, I would think too deep to be worth the effort that would be required.

[WLJ]

Akagi

[Brad Johnson]

Amazingly intact for where it is an what it went through to get there.

Brad

[230RN]

Just poking around a little on it.  Kinda surprising fact:  Yamamoto was its first commander.

Service record

Part of: First Air Fleet (Kido Butai)
Commanders:
Isoroku Yamamoto (1928–29)
Ryūnosuke Kusaka (1939–40)
Kiichi Hasegawa (1941–42)
Taijiro Aoki (1942)
 
Operations: Second Sino-Japanese War
World War II, Pacific War:
Attack on Pearl Harbor
Invasion of Rabaul
Bombing of Darwin
Invasion of Java
Indian Ocean raid
Battle of Midway
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aircraft_carrier_Akagi

[HankB]

How long until someone comes along and mine them for pre atomic bomb steel.

I saw an article that claimed salvaging WWII warships was "illegal" since they were "sacred war graves."

Since many/most of these wrecks are in international waters, how "off limits" they are probably depends on what country the salvage operation is based in.

[K Frame]

I believe that by international admiralty law warships, even those sunk in international waters, remain the property of the nation that they served. I think that's a fairly recent thing, though, in large part fueled by the discovery of a Russian ship in Japanese waters in the 1980s... Supposedly it was carrying billions in gold when it was sunk during the Russo-Japanese war. Both the Japanese and Russians claimed rights to it, and I THINK that finally kicked off some treaty movement in the late 1980s/early 1990s.

I'm pretty sure, though, that the US claims all sunken US ships, no matter where they are located, as US property and under jurisdiction of US law.

[230RN]

Blow-by-blow, bomb-by-bomb attack and scuttling (ordered by Yamamoto) of the Akagi:

https://warwater.blogspot.com/2015/05/sinking-of-akagi.html

Selected ("IJN" = "Imperial Japanese Navy"):

At 10:29 Captain Aoki ordered the ship's magazines flooded. The forward magazines were promptly flooded, but not the aft magazines because of valve damage, likely caused by the near miss aft. The ship's main water pump appears to have been damaged, greatly hindering firefighting efforts. On the upper hangar deck, at 10:32 damage control teams attempted to control the spreading fires by employing the one-shot CO2 fire-suppression system. Whether the system functioned or not is unclear but, regardless, the burning aviation fuel proved impossible to control, and serious fires began to advance deeper into the interior of the ship. At 10:40 additional damage caused by the rear near-miss made itself known when the ship's rudder jammed 30 degrees to starboard during an evasive maneuver.

...

At 04:50 on 5 June, Yamamoto ordered Akagi scuttled, saying to his staff, "I was once the captain of Akagi, and it is with heartfelt regret that I must now order that she be sunk." Destroyers Arashi, Hagikaze, Maikaze, and Nowaki each fired one torpedo into the carrier and she sank, bow first, at 05:20 at 30°30′N 178°40′W. Two hundred and sixty-seven men of the ship's crew were lost, the fewest of any of the Japanese fleet carriers lost in the battle. The loss of Akagi and the three other IJN carriers at Midway, comprising two thirds of Japan's total number of fleet carriers and the experienced core of the First Air Fleet, was a crucial strategic defeat for Japan and contributed significantly to Japan's ultimate defeat in the war. In an effort to conceal the defeat, Akagi was not immediately removed from the Navy's registry of ships, instead being listed as "unmanned" before finally being struck from the registry on 25 September 1942

It's worth reading the full bomb-by-bomb description.  Many American aviators lost their lives in beyond-brave attacks.

They're down there, too, you know.

Terry, 230RN

[WLJ]

Selected ("IJN" = "Imperial Japanese Navy"):

Kind of a side note

While IJN & HIJMS (His Imperial Japanese Majesty's Ship) are commonly used prefixes in books and modern discussion forums for WW-II era Japanese ships today they didn't actual have officially issued prefixes at the time like there was/is with the US Navy (USS) and British Navy (HMS) so the ships were usually referred to merely as The _______. The same goes for the German Kriegsmarine where DKM (Deutsche Kriegsmarine) is in common used today.
Modern Japan does on the other hand uses JDF (Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force) officially.

[230RN]

I once looked up the various maritime designations and had to laugh at it several times.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_prefix#Generic_(merchant_navy)_prefixes

[K Frame]

I've seen any number of speculations online as to why the wooden flight decks are gone...

Uhm... because the decks were pierced by multiple bombs, causing catastrophic fires on the hangar decks among the fueled and rearming planes...

What didn't burn off tended to get blown off.

There's some interesting footage of the BIG explosion that finally doomed Lexington at Coral Sea, and in the aftermath of it you can see clouds of small objects raining down and into the water... basically splintered flight deck.

[WLJ]

Hopefully they'll find the Akagi, Soryu and Hiryu soon since they should be in the same general area, although Hiryu should be a bit further to the west.

Quoting myself here

Make that to the north
https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/Japan/IJN/rep/Midway/Nagumo/Chart-2.jpg

[WLJ]

Link to  RV Petrel's FB page
Lots of photos and links
https://www.facebook.com/rvpetrel/

[WLJ]

Kaga in 3D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA1fjovmH9g

Akagi in 3D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biPCDsPP1fw

[Hawkmoon]

Kaga in 3D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA1fjovmH9g

Akagi in 3D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biPCDsPP1fw

Wow!

I knew they were built up on cruiser or battleship hulls, but I never realized just how high above the top pf the original hull the flights decks were. I'm surprised they didn't just capsize of their own accord as soon as they left the harbor.

[HeroHog]

All planes are stored ON DECK? No elevators? How do they land? Where are the aresting cables?

[BobR]

All planes are stored ON DECK? No elevators? How do they land? Where are the aresting cables?

Flight deck arrangements
Akagi and Kaga were completed with three superimposed flight decks, the only carriers ever to be designed so. The British carriers converted from "large light cruisers", Glorious, Courageous, and Furious, each had two flight decks, but there is no evidence that the Japanese copied the British model. It is more likely that it was a case of convergent evolution to improve launch and recovery cycle flexibility by allowing simultaneous launch and recovery of aircraft.[10] Akagi's main flight deck was 190.2 meters (624 ft 0 in) long and 30.5 meters (100 ft) wide,[11] her middle flight deck (beginning right in front of the bridge) was only 15 meters (49 ft 3 in) long and her lower flight deck was 55.02 meters (180 ft 6 in) long. The utility of her middle flight deck was questionable as it was so short that only some lightly loaded aircraft could use it, even in an era when the aircraft were much lighter and smaller than during World War II.[12] The upper flight deck sloped slightly from amidships toward the bow and toward the stern to assist landings and takeoffs for the underpowered aircraft of that time.[13]


Akagi on trials off the coast of Iyo, 17 June 1927, with all three flight decks visible
As completed, the ship had two main hangar decks and a third auxiliary hangar, giving a total capacity of 60 aircraft. The third and lowest hangar deck was used only for storing disassembled aircraft. The two main hangars opened onto the middle and lower flight decks to allow aircraft to take off directly from the hangars while landing operations were in progress on the main flight deck above. The upper and middle hangar areas totaled about 80,375 square feet (7,467.1 m2), the lower hangar about 8,515 square feet (791.1 m2). No catapults were fitted. Her forward aircraft lift was offset to starboard and 11.8 by 13 meters (38 ft 9 in × 42 ft 8 in) in size. Her aft lift was on the centerline and 12.8 by 8.4 meters (42 ft 0 in × 27 ft 7 in). The aft elevator serviced the upper flight deck and all three hangar decks. Her arresting gear was an unsatisfactory British longitudinal system used on the carrier Furious that relied on friction between the arrester hook and the cables. The Japanese were well aware of this system's flaws, as it was already in use on their first carrier, Hōshō, but had no alternatives available when Akagi was completed. It was replaced during the ship's refit in 1931 with a Japanese-designed transverse cable system with six wires and that was replaced in turn before Akagi began her modernization in 1935 by the Kure Model 4 type (Kure shiki 4 gata). There was no island superstructure when the carrier was completed; the carrier was commanded from a space below the forward end of the upper flight deck.[12][14] The ship carried approximately 150,000 US gallons (570,000 l) of aviation fuel for her embarked aircraft.[15]

As originally completed, Akagi carried an air group of 28 Mitsubishi B1M3 torpedo bombers, 16 Nakajima A1N fighters and 16 Mitsubishi 2MR reconnaissance aircraft.[8]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aircraft_carrier_Akagi


They had hanger decks, also 3 flight decks....

bob

[WLJ]

All planes are stored ON DECK? No elevators? How do they land? Where are the aresting cables?

The planes as shown in the 3d models are as they would be positioned on the flight deck to launch a strike. You can make out the arresting wires/system on the deck under the planes. The elevators to the hanger(s) decks can also be made out.

[WLJ]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aircraft_carrier_Akagi


 also 3 flight decks....

bob

As originally built they had 3 flight decks, both were rebuilt with a single ship length flight deck, thus also increasing hanger space, in the late 30s.
When originally converted to carriers you got to remember no one was really sure at the time what a carrier should look like. The Americans were the exceptions with the Lexington conversions in getting it, mostly, right on the first go with their Washington Treaty conversions.

[WLJ]

Akagi's hanger decks. Note the three elevators which BTW were double decked.



 

[HeroHog]

*3* flight decks??? Ooooooookay. Didn't see that from the 3D or the elevators.

[dogmush]

*3* flight decks??? Ooooooookay. Didn't see that from the 3D or the elevators.

By the battle of midway the lower and middle flight decks had been enclosed and converted to hanger decks, and the upper flight deck lengthened to run the full length of the ship.  That's why you didn't see them in the 3D animation.

Click on the wiki link and it has a good pic of her during sea trials that shows all three flight decks.  It should be noted that the lower and middle decks were take-off only.  Landing was done on the upper deck.  It was an early try at simultaneous landing and take off operations, like the angled landing deck on modern carriers allows.

I knew they were built up on cruiser or battleship hulls, but I never realized just how high above the top pf the original hull the flights decks were. I'm surprised they didn't just capsize of their own accord as soon as they left the harbor.

  Remember that most of that space above the hull is empty, or taken up with relitivly light aircraft.  There's a bunch of heavy machinery, fuel, ballast and other stuff down low to keep the CG below the Center of Buoyancy.