World War II Album: The War in View #26: Naval Power

IJN Nagato at Hashira-Jima after the Battle of Midway, August 1942.

IJN Nagato at anchor at Brunei, 21 October 1944.

IJN Nagato under U.S. control, 12 November 1945.

IJN Nagato under U.S. control, 1946.

IJN Mutsu at Yokosuka Naval Yard under construction, 24 September 1920.

IJN Mutsu and other battleships, 13 October 1924.

IJN Mutsu at Sasebo, 28 May 1925.

IJN Mutsu on sea trials at Yokosuka after reconstruction, 27 July 1936.

IJN Mutsu, Hyuga, and Yamashiro, Fourth Fleet, 6 November 1936.

IJN Mutsu at Yokosuka, 23 February 1937.

IJN Mutsu, 1941.

IJN Mutsu at Kagoshima, 1941.

IJN Nagato, Mutsu and light cruiser Tatsuta, 1927.

IJN Yamato fires her 18-inch guns.

Battleship IJN Ise, October 1945.

Heavy cruiser IJN Tone, 27 May 1942.

IJN Tone under attack.

IJN Tone.

One of two Japanese light cruisers caught by raiders at Kwajalein is burning.

Pilothouse instruments of Japanese destroyer Yukikase showing the prominent location of two pedestal-mounted 20-power lookout binoculars at the conning officer's station, indicating the emphasis the Japanese put on optics and night vision.

The Tokyo Express: Four Japanese destroyers return up the Slot after delivering reinforcements and supplies to Guadalcanal. The Tokyo Express was the name given by Allied forces to the use of Imperial Japanese Navy ships at night to deliver personnel, supplies, and equipment to Japanese forces operating in and around New Guinea and the Solomon Islands during the Pacific campaign of World War II. The operation involved loading personnel or supplies aboard fast warships (mainly destroyers), later submarines, and using the warships' speed to deliver the personnel or supplies to the desired location and return to the originating base all within one night so Allied aircraft could not intercept them by day.

Japanese midget sub is raised in Sydney Harbour following an attack by three submarines the night before. 1 June 1942.

I-400, I-401, and I-14 moored alongside the tender USS Proteus, Tokyo Bay, 1945.

Aircraft-carrying submarines I-400, I-401, and I-14, the largest in the world at the time, are moored alongside the USS Proteus in Tokyo Bay, September 1945.

A Japanese I-400 class submarine flying the black triangular pennant as ordered after the cessation of hostilities.

Submarine I-58, Commander Hashimoto Mochitsura, sank the USS Indianapolis with three Type 95 Long Lance torpedoes. This photo, taken at Sasebo in November 1945, clearly show the U-shaped devices that held the kaiten human torpedoes in place on her deck. The sub was scuttled at sea in 1946. I-58 was a Japanese B3 type cruiser submarine that served in the final year of World War II. Her only significant wartime success came with a conventional torpedo attack upon USS Indianapolis on 30 July 1945. She was modified to carry Kaiten manned torpedoes, making several attacks that inflicted minor damage in exchange for every Kaiten launched being sunk. The submarine surrendered in September 1945, and was later scuttled by the United States Navy.

A Japanese midget submarine, scuttled by her two-man crew during the naval battle of Guadalcanal, November 1942, and later raised by American Seabees. Nearby is the beached hulk of a Japanese transport.

Coast Defense Vessel No. 17, at Yokohama, 13 April, 1944, representative of three of the class of ships which sank the Bonefish (SS-223); Coast Defense Vessel No. 63, Coast Defense Vessel No. 75, and Coast Defense Vessel No. 207.

Lisbon Maru carrying Allied POWs was sunk by USS Grouper. Lisbon Maru (りすぼん丸) was a Japanese cargo liner built at Yokohama in 1920 for a Japanese shipping line. During World War II, the ship was turned into an armed troopship. On her final voyage, Lisbon Maru was being used to transport prisoners of war between Hong Kong and Japan when it was torpedoed on 1 October 1942, sinking with a loss of over 800 British lives.

Taiman Maru No. 1 is sunk in the central Yellow Sea on her maiden voyage by the USS Atule (SS-403) on 24 January 1945.

View from a periscope: Japanese merchant ship takes a direct hit from one of USS Barb’s torpedoes.

View from a periscope: Japanese merchant ship takes a direct hit from one of USS Barb’s torpedoes and is sinking.

View from a periscope: Japanese merchant ship takes a direct hit from one of USS Barb’s torpedoes and sinks.

A Japanese troopship under attack by American planes, as the crew tries to lower a lifeboat over the side.

B-24s score hits from 9,500 feet on a Japanese merchant vessel bound for Wewak.

A Japanese cargo ship under attack from American aircraft during the 4 December 1943 raid on Kwajalein.

The plane that destroyed this Japanese ammunition ship also was destroyed in the explosion.

Wake under attack by American carrier aircraft during one of the raids on the island after it fell to the Japanese. In the foreground is the wreck of one of the Japanese transports sunk by the gallant American defenders in December 1941, while in the background smoke billows forth from the airstrip.

Wake Island, seen from a squadron of U.S. Navy fighter planes, 2 February 1942.

A sunken Japanese troop transport protrudes bow-high on the beach at Guadalcanal.

A Japanese lighter bombed and strafed by a PB4Y-2 Privateer of U.S. Navy VPB-109 off the Korean coast in May 1945.

Japanese prison ship SS Kachidori Maru. U.S. submarines sank this ship which, unknown to them, was carrying Allied POWs.

Japanese prison ship SS Rakuyō Maru. This ship was also carrying Allied POWs when it was sunk by U.S. submarines. SS Rakuyo Maru (楽洋丸) was a passenger cargo ship built in 1921 by the Mitsubishi Shipbuilding & Engineering Company, Nagasaki for Nippon Yusen Kisen Kaisha.

Rear Admiral Raizo Tanaka, IJN, commander of the Japanese forces at the Battle of Tassafaronga. Raizō Tanaka (田中頼三, Tanaka Raizō, 27 April 1892 – 9 July 1969) was a rear admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during most of World War II. A specialist in the heavy torpedoes that were carried by all the destroyers and cruisers of the IJN, Tanaka mainly commanded destroyer squadrons, with a cruiser or two attached, and he was the primary leader of the "Tokyo Express" reinforcement and resupply shipments during the long campaign for the island of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands of the South Pacific Ocean. From the Americans, Tanaka acquired the nickname of "Tenacious Tanaka" for his stalwart opposition.

Admiral Takeo Kurita.

Vice-Admiral Shoji Nishimura.

Vice Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa.

Vice Admiral Nobutake Kondo.

Vice Admiral Gunichi Mikawa.

Commander Minoru Genda, Air Officer, First Air Fleet. He planned the attack on Pearl Harbor and helped plan the Battle of Midway but did not participate because of pneumonia.

Aerial photo of Tonolei Harbor, Bougainville, Solomon Islands during US attack, 9 October 1943.

Japanese submarine I-58 attacked the USS Indianapolis with a torpedo, sinking the U.S. ship in about twelve minutes.

Japanese carrier Akagi.

IJN Akagi.

IJN Akagi at Battle of Midway.

Japanese ships at Sasebo after the surrender, including I-402 in the center of the first row of submarines, it is the largest submarine. To the right of I-402 is I-47 with two small submarines tied alongside. To the left of I-402 is I-53 moored with another submarine.

Japanese battleship Nagato at Bikini Atoll, 1946.

Japanese battleship Nagato, 1946.

View from the IJN Kako of the IJN Furutaka followed by the IJN Kinugasa, 1942.

Recovering a Kawanishi E7K2 Type 94 floatplane.

IJN Aoba recovering an E13A1 floatplane, 1942.

IJN Furutaka and Kinugasa during maneuvers, 1941.

Japanese naval base on Tulagi.

Cruiser IJN Yubari.

IJN Kako.

View from IJN Chokai during the Battle of Savo Island.

View from the IJN Yubari during the Battle of Savo Island.

IJN Aoba.

Aoba, Bougainville, October 13, 1942.

Cruiser Kirishima and aircraft carrier Akagi.

Japanese carrier under attack by B-17's, June 4, 1942.

A torpedoed Japanese destroyer photographed through the periscope of either USS Wahoo or USS Nautilus, June 1942.

IJN Kaga being fitted out at Yokosuka Navy Yard, 20 November 1928.

IJN Nagato at Yokosuka, 1924.

HMS Vanguard.

British destroyer HMS Sikh.

The modified V-class destroyer HMS Vansittart (D64) of the Royal Navy tied to a buoy in 1943. The hardy ship was a member of a huge group of World War I-era British tin cans that pulled yeoman service in the twilight of their lives. On 1 July 1940, as Britain stood alone in the war, she took out German Type VIIB U-boat U-102 in the North Atlantic south-west of Ireland, in position 48°33’N, 10°26’E, by 11 depth charges then proceeded to pick up 26 survivors from the British merchant Clearton, U-102′s last victim. U-102 took all 43 hands including Kptlt. Harro von Klot-Heydenfeldt to the bottom. In February 1942, she reported to Gibraltar and took part in the epic resupply convoys to besieged Malta including Operation Pedestal where she helped screen HMS Eagle from both air and submarine attacks.

A bulldog named Venus stands at the helm of the HMS Vansittart, a British Destroyer, circa 1941.

Venus was one good-looking pooch.

By 1943, HMS Vansittart was undergoing a six-month refit at Middleborough from which she emerged with a more potent AAA defense, and traded in half her torpedo tubes for more ASW weapons, but restricted to just 25 knots.

This put HMS Vansittart back to escorting merchant convoys in the Atlantic for the rest of the war, including some very hard service in the ice zones. Chipping away ice on the deck of HMS Vansittart on convoy escort duty in the Arctic. Soon after VE Day, unneeded for the war in the Pacific, she was placed up for disposal along with the rest of the ships of her class still in the Atlantic.

HMS Warspite, Grand Harbour, Valetta, Malta.

Battleship HMS Warspite refueling a destroyer.

HMS Waveney, an early River class.

American battleships South Dakota and Alabama, and British battleship HMS Anson at sea, North Atlantic, 1943.

Some of the many small ships involved in the British evacuation of Dunkirk, 1940.

All possible means of water transportation were drafted into use for Operation Dynamo, from ships of the Royal Navy to civilian pleasure boats and tugs. Not all reached Britain because of attacks by the Luftwaffe; smaller vessels were swamped by overcrowding. Despite this more than 300,000 British and French troops were rescued from Dunkirk.

Artificial port at Arromanches, Normandy, D-Day invasion, June 1944.

German planes launch an attack on an Allied convoy carrying supplies to Murmansk.

The Capture of U-110 by the Royal Navy, 9 May 1941.

Allied warships of Bombarding Force 'O', supporting the landings in the Omaha area. The column is led by Texas (BB-35) (left) with HMS Glasgow, Arkansas (BB-33), FFS Georges Leygues and FFS Montcalm following.