World War II Database

Taiho was among the most beautiful aircraft carriers built by Japan during WW2. Her distinct design, most notably the first to incorporate a closed hurricane bow, contributed to her aesthetic greatly. She was engaged at the Battle of the Philippines Sea only three months after her commission as the flagship of Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa. While launching aircraft, American submarine Albacore fired a spread of six torpedoes at her. Pilot Sakio Komatsu who had just been launched by Taiho saw the spread the six torpedoes and dived for one of them, but it resulted in failure. One of the torpedoes hit, jamming the ship's forward aircraft elevator and filling the elevator pit with gasoline, water, and aviation fuel, but since the armored flight deck was undamaged, Ozawa ordered launching operations to continue. The damage control team then made a fatal mistake. Believing that the best way to disperse gasoline fumes was to open up the elevator to the ship's ventilation systems, the novice damage control team leader filled the ship with flammable vapor. At 1330 on 19 Jun 1944, the vapor was ignited, and the entire ship erupted in an explosion. The ship began sinking very quickly. Ozawa wanted to go down with the ship, but his staff was able to convince him to transfer his flag to cruiser Haguro. After Ozawa left, a second explosion took place, and she sank astern shortly after, taking the lives of 1,650 men.

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Visitor Submitted Comments

1. Anonymous says:
   11 Jul 2007 08:43:29 PM
   
   given time, the taiho and her sister ships would have been a challenge to the us navy.
2. Anonymous says:
   26 Jul 2009 09:44:37 AM
   
   True, her radial armored eck and modern features would have made a whole class of such ships a pretty eqaul match to any US carriers of the time.
3. Anonymous says:
   4 Feb 2010 12:48:03 PM
   
   A modern carrier, but too little too late. The US was cranking them out much, much faster at this stage of the war.

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