World War II Database

Rear Admiral Chiaki Matsuda was a 32-year veteran of the Japanese Navy. Between Feb and Dec 1942, he was the commanding officer of battleship Hyuga, and then between Dec 1942 and Sep 1943 the commanding officer of battleship Yamato. After some time with the Naval General Staff, he was assigned the commanding officer of the Carrier Division 4 along with the 4th Aircraft Squadron in May 1944 and then the commanding officer of the Yokosuka Naval Air Corp in Feb 1945. After the war, he was interrogated by Lieutenant Commander J. A. Field, Jr. of the United States Naval Reserves in Tokyo on 12 Nov 1945, and was commented by Field as "an exceedingly agreeable and cooperative witness and his testimony was considered generally accurate". Matsuda shared his less-than-enthusiastic personal opinion of the hybrid battleship-carrier platform such as Ise and Hyuga, and the theoretical doctrine for operating such hybrids. He indicated that Hyuga and Ise were never fully used as hybrids because they never received sufficient quantity of pilots to actually operate as carriers. Matsuda also shared his observation that when a Japanese air unit was placed in combat, all pilots stay on the front lines until all pilots were lost; had some pilots been withdrawn to the rear for reorganization of new units, the veterans could have formed nuclei of the new units, providing experience to new units and guidance to newly trained pilots.

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