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IJN Yamato

IJN Yamato

Yamato (大和), named after the ancient Japanese Yamato Province, was a battleship of the Imperial Japanese Navy, and was the lead ship of her class. She and her sister ship Musashi were the largest, heaviest battleships ever constructed, weighing 65,027 tons and armed with nine 46 cm (18.1 inch) main guns.

Construction

Musashi The Yamato class were designed in the post Washington Naval Treaty period. Design work began in 1934 and after modifications the design was accepted in March 1937 for a 68,000 ton vessel. She was built at a specially prepared dock at Kure Naval Dockyards beginning on 4 November 1937. She was launched on 8 August 1940 and commissioned on 16 December 1941. Originally it was intended that five ships of this class would be built, but the third ship of the class, Shinano, was converted to an aircraft carrier during construction after the defeat at the Battle of Midway, the un-named "Hull Number 111" was scrapped in 1943 when roughly 30% complete, and "Hull Number 797", proposed in the 1942 5th Supplementary Program, was never ordered. Plans for a "super Yamato" class, with 50.8 cm (20 inch) guns, provisionally designated as "Hull Number 798" and "Hull Number 799", were abandoned in 1942. The class was designed to be superior to any ship that the United States was likely to produce. The 46 cm (18.2 inch) main guns were selected over 40.6cm (16 inch) because the width of the Panama Canal would make it impracticable for the U.S. Navy to construct a battleship with the same caliber guns without severe design restrictions or an inadequate defensive arrangement. To further confuse the intelligence agencies of other countries, her main guns were officially named as 40.6cm Special, and civilians were never notified of the true nature of the guns. Their budgets were also scattered among various projects so that the huge total costs would not be immediately noticeable. At the Kure Navy Yard where she was built, the construction dock was deepened, the gantry crane capacity was increased to 100 metric tonnes, and part of the dock was roofed over to prevent observation of work. Arc welding, a relatively new procedure at that time, was used extensively during construction. The lower side-belt armor was used as a strength member of the hull structure. The undulating line of the main deck forward saved structural weight without reducing hull girder strength. Tests of models in a model basin led to the adoption of a semi-transom stern and a bulbous bow, which reduced hull resistance by 8%. The ship had one single large rudder (at frame 231), which gave it a large turning circle of 640 meters; there was also a smaller auxiliary rudder installed (at frame 219) which was virtually useless. The steam turbine power plant was of a relatively low powered design (25 kgf/cm² (2.5 MPa), 325 °C), and as such, their fuel usage rate was very high. This is a primary reason why they were not used during the Solomons Campaigns and other mid-war operations. There were a total of 1147 watertight compartments in the ship.

Combat

Solomons Yamato was the flagship of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto from 12 February 1942, replacing Nagato. She took part in the Midway operation in June, 1942, but took no active part in the Battle of Midway. She remained the flagship for 364 days, one day short of a full year, until on February 11, 1943, the flag was transferred to her sister ship Musashi. From 29 August 1942 through to 8 May 1943, she spent all of her time at Truk, being underway for only 1 day during this entire time. In May 1943, she returned to Kure where the two wing 15.5 cm turrets were removed and replaced by 25 mm machine guns, and Type-22 surface search radars were added. She returned to Truk on 25 December 1943, and on the way there, she was damaged by a torpedo from the submarine USS Skate, and was not fully repaired until April 1944. During these repairs, additional 12.7 cm anti-aircraft guns were installed in the place of the 15.5 cm turrets removed in May, and additional 25 mm anti-aircraft guns were added. She returned to the conflict and joined the Japanese fleet in the Battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944 In October, she participated in the Battles of Leyte Gulf and Samar, during which she first fired her main guns in action, and she received two bomb hits from aircraft which did little damage. She returned home in November and her anti-aircraft capability was again upgraded over the winter. She was attacked in the Inland Sea on March 19 1945 by carrier aircraft from Task Force 58 as they attacked Kure. She suffered little damage during the engagement. Kure Her final mission was as part of Operation Ten-Go following the invasion of Okinawa on 1 April 1945. She was sent on a suicide mission (commanded by Admiral Ito Seiichi) to attack the US fleet supporting the US troops landing on the west of the island. On 6 April Yamato and her escorts, the light cruiser Yahagi and 8 destroyers, left port at Tokuyama. They were sighted on 7 April by American submarines as they exited the Inland Sea southwards. The U.S. Navy launched 386 aircraft to intercept the task force, and the planes engaged the ships starting at 12:30 that afternoon. Yamato took 8 bomb and 10 torpedo hits before, at about 14:23, she capsized to port and her aft magazines detonated. She sank while still some 200 km from Okinawa. Of her crew 2,475 were lost, and the 269 survivors were picked up by the escorting destroyers. The wreckage lies in around 300 meters of water and was surveyed in 1985 and 1999.

References


- Yoshida Mitsuru, Requiem for Battleship Yamato. A detailed description of the ship's final voyage; Mitsuru was the only surviving bridge officer.
- Janusz Skulski, The Battleship Yamato. A highly detailed book on every aspect of the ship.
- Russell Spurr's A Glorious Way To Die. A description of Yamato's final days as seen from the perspective of not only her officers and men, but also the accompanying ships of her task force and the American forces who destroyed her.
- Siegfried Breyer, Battleships and Battlecruisers 1905-1970 (Doubleday and Company; Garden City, New York, 1973) (originally published in German as Schlachtschiffe und Schlachtkreuzer 1905-1970, J.F. Lehmanns, Verlag, Munchen, 1970). Contains various line drawings of the ship as designed and as built.
- Robert Gardiner, ed., Conway’s All the World’s Fighting Ships 1922 - 1946, (Conway Maritime Press, London, 1980)
- William H. Gargke, Jr., and Robert O. Dulin, Jr., Battleships: Axis and Neutral Battlehips in World War II, (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 1985)

Trivia

Yoshida Mitsuru]
- Yamato was said by her crew to be "more beautiful than a woman".
- In 2005, a museum about Yamato opened in Kure, Hiroshima. A 1/10 model can be seen there.
- In a futuristic anime television and movie series Space Battleship Yamato, broadcast in the US as Star Blazers, humanity salvages the wreck of Yamato from the evaporated ocean floor and refits it as a spaceship which saves the Earth and its people from toxic radiation which is ravaging the planet, due to alien bombardment.
- Yamato is also the name of one of the Galaxy Class sister ships to the USS Enterprise on Star Trek: The Next Generation.
- The historical fiction anime series Zipang features Yamato prominently in the early episodes of the series.
- The RTS game StarCraft, from Blizzard Entertainment, features a game unit called the Terran Battlecruiser with a special attack called "Yamato cannon" probably in homage to the Space Battle Ship Yamato 's Wave Motion Gun.
- Now defunct Interplay Entertainment's starship combat simulation game, Star Trek: Klingon Academy, features the Yamato as a class of superheavy dreadnaughts fielded by the United Federation of Planets.
- An episode of the 1980s Rambo Cartoon featured an attempt to raise Yamato.
- In the game Starlancer, based around space fighter combat, the player's home carrier is a Japanese spaceship called Yamato.
- There is a film based on the exploits of the Yamato and her crew in the Japanese film "Otoko-tachi no Yamato" made in 2005 .

External links


- [http://www.combinedfleet.com/yamato.htm IJN Yamato: Tabular Record of Movement]
- [http://wgordon.web.wesleyan.edu/kamikaze/books/personal/yoshida/index.htm Yoshida Mitsuru, Requiem for Battleship Yamato] book review
- [http://wgordon.web.wesleyan.edu/kamikaze/books/general/spurr/index.htm Russell Spurr, A Glorious Way To Die] book review
- [http://www.warship.get.net.pl/Japonia/Battleships/1941_Yamato_class/Wreck/_Yamato_wreck_02.html Pictures of Yamato Wreck]
- [http://yamato.kure-city.jp Yamato Museum official site] (Japanese with some English)
- [http://apike.ca/japan_kure_yamato.html Yamato Museum] (description from Kure city guide, in English)
- [http://album.nikon-image.com/nk/NK_ImageView.asp?key=555537&un=97313&pos=1 Images of 1/10 scale Yamato model at Kure Yamato Museum]
- [http://www.yamato-movie.jp Site of the upcoming Japanese film based on the exploits of the Yamato]
- [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/supership/ PBS NOVA episode "Sinking the Supership"] show website Yamato ja:大和 (戦艦)



Battleship

:This article is about the type of warship. See also Battleship (game). Battleship (game)]] In naval warfare, a battleship was the most powerful gun-armed, most heavily armored and most effective type of warship at any particular time. The name has therefore been applied to a wide range of quite different vessels, from 15th century wooden galleons, through sail battleships of the Age of Sail and coastal battleships of the early 20th Century, to the massive, modern Yamato class ships built by Japan during World War II. In the mid 20th Century the battleship's role as the most powerful warship was taken by the aircraft carrier, because it had greater range. Battleships were designed to engage enemy warships with direct or indirect fire from an arsenal of main guns. As a secondary role, they were capable of bombarding targets on and near an enemy coast to support infantry assaults. During World War II battleships became largely obsolete because of the greater range and striking power of the aircraft carrier, although some continued to be used for shore bombardment and as missile platforms until the late 1990s. The word battleship originated with the development of the line of battle tactic in the mid 17th century. Ships expected to form part of this line were called ships-of-the-line-of-battle or line-of-battle ships. This was eventually abbreviated to "battleship". These were divided into first-, second- and third-rates. Fourth and fifth-rates were frigates, and sixth-rates were sloops (strictly "sloops-of-war"). These vessels were used for communications and reconnaissance and did not usually fight in fleet encounters. Although this classification worked well in the 18th Century, from the middle of the 19th Century, the terminology became confused by the introduction of large steam-powered armoured single-deck ships with a small number of very powerful guns. These were technically frigates because they had a single gundeck, but they were designed to fight as ships of the line, and were the most potent warships of their time.

Early battleships

19th Century]] The origin of the concept of the battleship can be found in the "great ships", such as galleons, which had existed in several European countries since around 1410. These large Western ships were themselves preceded by the great sailing junks of the Chinese Empire, described by various travelers to the East such as Marco Polo and Niccolò Da Conti, and used during the travels of Admiral Zheng He in the early 15th century, and by the various cogs and busses in the Baltic Sea region, and galleasses and mahons in the Mediterranean Sea. Following the development of the line of battle, first used with ships of the line by England, the Netherlands and Spain in the early 17th century, battleships became for over 300 years the main instrument of naval warfare by European countries, allowing nations such as the Netherlands, Spain, France and, most notably, Britain, to create and maintain trade-based overseas empires. In the 17th century fleets could consist of almost a hundred ships of various sizes, but by the mid 18th century, ship-of-the-line design had settled on a few standard types: older two-deckers (i.e. with two complete decks of guns firing through side ports) of 50 guns (which were too weak for the battle-line but could be used to escort convoys), two-deckers of between 64 and 90 guns which formed the main part of the fleet, and larger three- or even four-deckers with 98–144 guns which were used as admirals' command ships. Fleets consisting of perhaps 10–25 of these ships, with their attendant supply ships and scouting and messenger frigates kept control of the sea-lanes for major European naval powers whilst restricting sea-borne trade of enemies. Although Spain, the Netherlands and France built huge fleets, they were rarely able to match the skill of British naval crews. British crews excelled, in part, because they spent much more time at sea, were generally better fed, and were generally more competent as the Royal Navy based promotion on merit rather than lordship. In addition, with no large land army to support, the United Kingdom was always free to devote more resources to her prized navy. In the North Sea and North Atlantic Ocean the fleets of Britain, the Netherlands, France and Spain fought numerous battles in support of their land armies and to deny the enemy access to trade routes. In the Baltic Sea, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and Russia did likewise, while in the Mediterranean Sea Russia, Ottoman Turkey, Venice, Britain and France battled for control of the Balkans, Egypt and Malta. Malta During the Napoleonic Wars, Great Britain defeated Europe's major naval powers at battles such as at Copenhagen and Trafalgar, allowing the Royal Navy to establish itself as the world's primary naval power. Spain, Denmark and Portugal largely stopped building battleships during this time under duress from the British. Britain emerged from the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 with the largest and most professional navy in the world, composed of hundreds of wooden, sail-powered ships of all sizes and classes. The Royal Navy had complete naval supremacy across the world following the Napoleonic Wars, and demonstrated this superiority during the Crimean War in the 1850s.

Industrial Age

However, from the early 1840s onwards, several technological innovations started to revolutionize the conception of warships. Reliable steam power made warships much more maneuverable, and became the obvious choice against sail as soon as the issue of long-distance travel and re-coaling was solved. Naval guns with exploding shells, capable of penetrating wooden hulls and setting them on fire, were invented by the French Admiral Henri-Joseph Paixhans, and adopted from 1841 by the navies of France, England, Russia and the United States. Their efficacy, largely proven during the Crimean War in turn led to the development of the first ironclad warships in 1859, and the subsequent generalization of iron hulls. In the 1860s major naval powers built "armoured frigate" type ships, which, although having only one gundeck, were used as battleships, not frigates. The first steel-hulled ships then appeared in 1876, with the launch of the French Redoutable.

Explosive-shell naval guns

Although explosive shells had long been in use in ground warfare (in howitzers and mortars), they could only be fired at high angles in elliptical trajectories and with relatively low velocities, which rendered them unpractical for marine combat. Naval combat essentially requires flat-trajectory guns in order to have some odds of hitting the target, so that naval warfare had consisted for centuries in encounters between flat-trajectory cannons using inert cannonballs, which a wooden boat could rather easily absorb. The French Admiral Henri-Joseph Paixhans developed a time-delay mechanism which, for the first time, allowed shells to be fired safely by high-powered and hence flat-trajectory guns. The effect of explosive shells against wooden hulls causing fires was devastating. The first Paixhans guns were produced in 1841 and France, Great Britain, Russia and the United States adopted the new naval guns in the 1840s. The change on naval warfare was demonstrated to its greatest effect when the Russian Navy equipped with these guns annihilated the Turkish fleet at the Battle of Sinop in 1853. From 1854, the American John A. Dahlgren, took the Paixhans gun, which was designed only for a shell, to develop a gun capable of firing shot and shell, and these were used during the American Civil War (1861-1865).

Ironclads

1865 battleship (1858)]] Britain's naval supremacy was further challenged in 1859 when France launched Gloire, the first ocean-going ironclad battleship. Although made of wood and reliant on sail for most of her journeys, Gloire was fitted with a propeller and her wooden hull was protected by a layer of thick iron armour. This ship instantly rendered all British battleships obsolete, as British vessels would easily be outmaneuvered and their cannonballs would simply bounce off Gloire's revolutionary metal armour. Britain sparked a massive naval arms race by launching the much-superior Warrior in 1860. The improvements in ship design that followed, meant that both ships were obsolescent within 10 years. With the Royal Navy's "wooden walls" rendered obsolete by the new breed of ironclad ships, other world powers seized the opportunity to build high-tech warships to rival British vessels, and major warship construction programmes began in earnest in Britain, France, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Russia and Prussia/Germany. Desperate to maintain naval superiority (under the premise that the Royal Navy had to outnumber the world's next two largest navies combined), the British government spent more and more money on up-to-the-minute warship designs.

Turrets and rifled guns

Soon after, however, turreted guns began to be used, following the designs of the shipwright John Ericsson. This was largely necessitated by the introduction of paddle wheels, which prevented ships from displaying lines of guns along their sides. Turrets allowed the guns to fire on both beams, so fewer guns needed to be carried. In the 1870s the armoured frigate type, with its side-ported guns, dropped out of fashion. Armoured cruisers, which were first built with broadside guns, soon adopted turrets as well. The transition from smoothbore cannon to Rifled Muzzle Loaders and Rifled Breech Loaders greatly affected the design of the ships. The fear that an enemy naval power could launch an attack with ships that were only slightly superior became a major factor in British defence policy during the late 19th Century. Warship technology was advancing so rapidly from 1865-1906 that new battleships were often rendered obsolete within a few years of construction. This created a huge financial strain - by 1870, the British government was spending a staggering 37% of its annual national budget on the construction of new battleships.

Brown powder

Various technological advances affected the naval arms race. The development of brown powder was a critical step in the creation of the modern battleship—black powder combusted rapidly, and therefore useful cannons required relatively short barrels, otherwise the friction of the barrel would slow down the shell accelerated by the violent expansion of the powder. The sharpness of the black powder explosion also meant that guns were subjected to extreme material stress. Brown powder, which combusted less rapidly, allowed longer barrels, which allowed greater accuracy; and because it expanded less sharply than black powder, it put less strain on the insides of the barrel, allowing guns to last longer and to be manufactured to tighter tolerances. This permitted a battleship to mount fewer guns to greater effect than its predecessors.

Design experiments

From 1870 to 1890 battleship design was in a wildly experimental phase, as different navies experimented with different turret arrangements, sizes and numbers, with each new design rendering the previous ones largely obsolete overnight. Bizarre experimental warships appeared—a series of German warships were built with dozens of small guns to repel smaller craft, a British vessel was built using a turbine engine (which ironically became the main propulsion system for all ships), whilst an entire class of French battleships—known as "fierce-face"—were designed to intimidate enemy crews through their sheer ugliness (?). The main battleship nations during this period were Britain, France and Russia, plus newcomers Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy, while Turkey and Spain built small numbers of armoured frigates and cruisers, and Sweden, Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands built smaller "coastal battleships" (pantserschip) of up to 5,000 tons. pantserschip, in 1905]] The first warships resembling modern battleships were built in Britain around 1870 with the Devastation class of low-freeboard turret ships, a few years after the first battle between ironclad warships (the USS Monitor and CSS Virginia at Hampton Roads, Virginia). However, it was not until around 1880 that battleship design became stable enough for larger classes to be built to a single design. Later in the period battleship displacement grew rapidly as more powerful engines and more armour and minor guns were added. Many experimental ships were built, but all navies finally converged on a design known after-the-fact as Pre-dreadnoughts, which were battleships built in the period 1890–1905 and usually having a displacement of 9,000–16,000 tons, a speed of 13–18 knots, and an armament of four "big guns", usually 12" (305mm) in bore diameter, in two centreline turrets, fore and aft, plus a heavy intermediate battery of typically eight 8" guns carried in double turrets on the superstructure corners, and a secondary battery of smaller guns. The 12" mains and 8" intermediates were generally used for battleship to battleship combat, while the secondaries (typically 7" to 5") were reserved for smaller threats, cruisers and the new destroyers. A small number of designs, including the American Kearsarge and Virginia classes, experimented with the 8" secondary superimposed over the 12" primary, with less than stellar results. Turrets, armour plate, and steam engines were all improved over the years, and torpedo tubes were introduced. However, events in 1906 sparked off another naval arms race.

"All-big-guns"

In 1905 the Russian Navy was decisively defeated at the Battle of Tsushima by the modern Japanese Navy, which was equipped with the latest battleships. The events of the battle revealed to the world that only the biggest guns mattered in modern naval battles. As secondary guns grew in size, spotting gun splashes (and aiming) between main and secondary guns became problematic. The Battle of Tsushima demonstrates that damage from the main guns was much greater than secondary guns. In addition, the battle demonstrated the practicability of gun battles beyond the range of secondary guns (12,000 yards). Japan, the first ship to be designed and laid down as an "all-big-gun" battleship]] The United States, Japan, and Britain all realized this and launched plans for all-big-gun ships. The Imperial Japanese Navy's Satsuma was the first battleship in the world to be designed and laid down as an all-big-gun battleship, although gun shortages only allowed her to be equipped with four of the twelve 12-in guns that had been planned. Britain, lead by Head of Admiralty Jacky Fisher, took the lead and completed Dreadnought in only 11 months. Dreadnought carried ten 12-inch guns in 5 turrets, and was powered not by reciprocating engines, but by revolutionary (for large ships) steam turbines. Previous ships powered by reciprocating steam engines were, in practice, limited by engine vibration to 18 knots. Even at that speed vibration limited aiming ability and the engines wore out quickly. Dreadnought had a top speed of 21 knots. It was the first of the new breed of "all-big-gun" battleships. Major naval powers raced to build their own dreadnoughts to avoid being overtaken by Britain. The Royal Navy, which demanded a navy equal to any two of its competitors combined, began demanding increasingly unaffordable sums from the government for dreadnought construction. The government, already burdened with financial crises caused by the military catastrophe of the Second Boer War and a voting population demanding more government expenditure on welfare and public works, could not afford to squander precious money on even more dreadnoughts, allowing rival navies (particularly the Kaiserliche Marine) to catch up with Britain's battleship forces. Even after Dreadnoughts commission, battleships continued to grow in size, guns, and technical proficiency as countries vied to have the best ships. By 1914 Dreadnought was outmoded. This expensive arms race would not end until the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922. This treaty limited the number and size of battleships that each major nation could possess.

The Dreadnought era

1922 With advances in gun laying and aiming, engagement ranges had increased from 1000 yards or less to 6000 yards or more over the previous few years, in part as a consequence of the devastating, but short-ranged firepower of the recently invented torpedo. This had caused a move away from mixed calibre armament, as each calibre required a different aiming calibration, something which unnecessarily complicated gunnery techniques. At longer ranges, the higher maximum rate of fire of the smaller calibres was negated by the need to wait for shell splashes before firing the next salvo. This negated the advantage of small-calibre guns; heavier weapons were no faster, but packed a much greater punch. Partially as a consequence of this new philosophy, and partially as a consequence of its powerful new turbine engine, Dreadnought dispensed completely with the smaller calibre secondary armament carried by her immediate predecessors, allowing her to carry more heavy caliber guns than any other battleship built up to that time. She carried ten 12-inch guns mounted in five turrets; three along the centreline and two on the wings, giving her twice the broadside of anything else afloat. The first large warship equipped with steam turbines, she could make 21 knots in a calm sea, allowing her to outrun existing battleships (typical speed 18kts). Her armor was strong enough that she could conceivably go toe-to-toe with any other ship afloat in a gun battle and win. Although there were some problems with the ship — the design's wing turrets strained the hull when firing broadsides, and the top of the thickest armor belt lay below the waterline when the ship was fully loaded — Dreadnought was so revolutionary that battleships built before her were afterward known as "pre-Dreadnoughts", and those following as "Dreadnoughts". Vessels built within a few years that were bigger and mounted more powerful guns were referred to as "Super Dreadnoughts". In a stroke, Dreadnought had made all existing battleships obsolete; including those of the Royal Navy, which embarked on a programme of building ever-more-powerful Dreadnought designs. National pride in the early 20th century was largely based on how many of these ships a navy had, and details were published in the newspapers for the public to avidly follow; the naval arms race which Dreadnought sparked, especially between Britain and the young German empire, was to create powerful shockwaves. Whereas Germany before the commissioning of Dreadnought had been behind the British Empire by more than twenty battleships of the highest class, they were now behind only one. Dreadnought was powered with steam turbines, which enabled her to sustain a higher maximum speed for longer, and with less maintenance than its triple-expansion engine powered predecessors. Being more compact, the turbines also allowed for a lower hull, which had the side-effect of reducing the amount of armour the ship had to carry. Although turbines had been used in destroyers for some years previously, Dreadnought was the first large warship to use them. As a consequence of the turbines, Dreadnought was actually slightly cheaper than the previous Lord Nelson class of pre-Dreadnoughts. The American South Carolina class battleships were begun before Dreadnought, and had most of its features, except for the steam turbines; however, their final design was not completed before Dreadnought, and their construction took much longer.

The super Dreadnought

South Carolina class The arrival of super dreadnoughts is not as clearly identified with a single ship in the way the dreadnought era was initiated by HMS Dreadnought. However, it is commonly viewed to commence with the Orion class battleships, and in German ships with the Konigs. The Orions were just one step in a breathtakingly rapid evolution that Dreadnought had initiated. What made them "super" was the unprecedented jump in displacement of 2,000 tons over the previous class, the introduction of the 13.5 inch gun, and the placement of all the main armaments following the direction of the keel. Thus, in the four years that separated the laying down of Dreadnought and Orion, displacement had increased by 25%, and weight of broadside had doubled. Super dreadnoughts also incorporated, during construction, the latest technical gunnery advances. Thus they received director control, were designed with larger observation positions with range finders and electrical repeaters aloft, mechanical calculators and predictors in protected positions below, and very advanced alignment and correction devices for the guns. The design weakness of super dreadnoughts, which distinguished them from post-war designs, was armour disposition. Initially, shipwrights preferred the vertical protection of short battle ranges. These ships were capable of engaging effectively at 20,000 metres, but were vulnerable when receiving fire from such ranges. Post-war designs typically had 5 to 6 inches of deck armour to defend against this dangerous, plunging fire. Lack of underwater protection also overtook these pre-World War I designs. The super dreadnought era was over by the end of World War I. Super dreadnoughts that served in World War II had all either received extensive modifications, or were a source of extreme anxiety because of their vulnerability to more modern battleships, or both.

World War I

Konig A naval arms race had been ongoing between Germany and the United Kingdom since the 1890s. The building of Dreadnought actually helped Germany in this, as instead of having a lead of 15 or so ships of the latest type, Britain now had a lead of just one. Furthermore, Britain's policy of maintaining a navy larger than the world's second and third largest navies combined was becoming unsustainably expensive. All other battleship navies switched over in the next few years to building Dreadnought-type ships as well. At this point in time, the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom had ruled the seas for several centuries, but the German emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II and his naval minister, Alfred von Tirpitz, set out to change that, in part for strategic reasons, but mainly due to a simple desire to challenge Britain. The culmination of this race led to a stalemate in World War I. The German High Seas Fleet and the British Grand Fleet were too valuable to be risked in battle and so both spent the majority of the war in port, waiting to respond should the other go to sea. Paradoxically, the ships were too valuable (strategically, at least) to leave at port, and too expensive to use in battle. Apart from some operations in the Baltic against Russia, Germany's main fleet limited itself to making battlecruiser raids on the British east coast, in an attempt to lure part of the British fleet out so that it could be defeated by the waiting High Seas Fleet. In their turn, the British made sweeps of the North Sea, and both sides laid extensive minefields. Although there were several naval battles, the only engagement between the main British and German fleets was the abortive Battle of Jutland, a German tactical victory of sorts (fourteen British ships were sunk to eleven German although the High Seas Fleet fled the field) but a British strategic victory, as although the German fleet was not destroyed it took longer to come back to operational status than the British and mostly remained in port for the rest of the war. After World War I, the Armistice with Germany required that most of the High Seas Fleet be interned at Scapa Flow, Scotland. Most of these ships were subsequently scuttled by their German crews on 21 June 1919 just before the formal surrender of Germany. As far as the German sailors were concerned, they were undefeated; it was felt that their ships should not fall into the hands of the British.

World War II

1919]] With the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, the major navies of the world scaled back their battleship programs, with numerous ships on all sides scrapped or repurposed. With extensions, that treaty lasted until 1936, when the major navies of the world began a new arms race. Famous ships like Bismarck, Prince of Wales and Yamato were all launched in the next few years. During the conflict naval warfare evolved quickly and battleships lost their position as the principal ships of the fleet. In the early stages of the battle of the Atlantic, Germany's surface units threatened the Atlantic convoys supplying Britain, so the British surface units devoted themselves to protecting the convoys, and seeking out and trying to destroy the German ships, as well as lying in wait at Scapa Flow. The German battleship raiders recorded early successes, with Scharnhorst and Gneisenau surprising and sinking the aircraft carrier HMS Glorious off western Norway in June 1940. A subsequent cruise in the North Atlantic netted the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau 22 ships. Bismarck sank the battlecruiser HMS Hood on 24 May 1941 during an attempt to break out into the North Atlantic. The Royal Navy hunted down Bismarck; an attack by Swordfish biplanes from the aircraft carrier Ark Royal with torpedoes disabled her steering, leaving her a sitting-duck, and on Monday 27 May 1941 the battleships King George V, Rodney and a number of cruisers and destroyers engaged her with guns and torpedoes. After an eighty-eight minute battle, she sank, with some reports indicating that she was scuttled by her own crew. Battleships were also involved in the battle to control the Mediterranean. At the Battle of Taranto in November 1940, Swordfish airplanes from HMS Illustrious attacked the Italian fleet at their base at Taranto. Losing 21 planes, the Royal Navy effectively sunk one battleship and disabled two others. The success of this raid inspired the Japanese plan to attack Pearl Harbor which entered the planning stage three months later. At the Battle of Cape Matapan, 27–29 March 1941, three Italian heavy cruisers were surprised and overwhelmed by a British battleship force near Crete, demonstrating that lighter ships in the fleet were still vulnerable to big guns. However, technology was overtaking the battleship. A battleship's big guns might have a range of thirty miles, but the aircraft carrier had aircraft with ranges of several hundred miles, and radar was making those attacks ever more effective. Bismarck was crippled by obsolete Swordfish torpedo bombers from Victorious and Ark Royal. The Soviet dreadnought Petropavlovsk and Italian Roma were sunk by German air attacks. The British battleship HMS Prince of Wales and its battlecruiser escort HMS Repulse were sunk by Japanese torpedo bombers while in defence of Malaya (Malaysia and Singapore). Prince of Wales became the first battleship to be sunk by aircraft while able to defend itself in open water. D-Day saw battleships in the role of coastal bombardment in support of an amphibious landing on a hostile, fortified shore. Several older battlewagons came into their own, not only knocking out coastal guns which threatened transports and landing craft, but also hitting troop and tank concentrations, and railway marshalling yards. HMS Ramillies fired 1,002 15" shells at shore targets as well as driving off German aircraft, E Boat and destroyer attacks. The Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941 sank or damaged most of the U.S. Pacific Fleet's battleships, but the three aircraft carriers were not in port and so escaped damage. Six months later, it was those carriers that were to turn the tide of the Pacific War at the battle of Midway. As the war progressed, battleships became festooned with anti-aircraft weapons such as the 40mm Bofors gun. Nonetheless, the advent of air power spelled doom for the battleship. 40mm Bofors gun, Louisville, Portland, and Columbia into Lingayen Gulf, Philippines, January 1945]] Battleships in the Pacific ended up primarily performing shore bombardment and anti-aircraft defense for the carriers. The largest battleships ever constructed, Japan's Yamato and Musashi, were sunk by aircraft attacks long before they could come within striking range of the American fleet. The last active German battleship, Tirpitz, had lurked until late into the war in Norwegian fjords protected by anti-submarine defences and shore based anti-aicraft guns, but was still damaged there and sunk by RAF aircraft using Tallboy bombs. The second half of World War II saw the last four battleship duels. Massachusetts fought Vichy French battleship Jean Bart on 27 October,1942. In the Battle of Guadalcanal on November 15 1942, the United States battleships South Dakota and Washington fought and destroyed the Japanese battleship Kirishima. In the Battle of North Cape, on 26 December 1943, HMS Duke of York and destroyers sank the German Scharnhorst off Norway. And in the Battle of Leyte Gulf on 25 October 1944 six battleships, led by admiral Jesse Oldendorf of the US 7th Fleet sank the Japanese admiral Shoji Nishimura's battleships Yamashiro and Fuso during the Battle of Surigao Strait. Nevertheless, the Battle of Samar on 25 October 1944 during the Battle of Leyte Gulf proved that battleships still were a lethal weapon. Only the indecision of Admiral Takeo Kurita saved the American aircraft carriers of "Taffy 3" from being pounded to the bottom by gunfire of Yamato, Kongo and Nagato and their cruiser host. Miraculously, only USS Gambier Bay along with four destroyers were lost due to surface action. As a result of the changing technology, plans for even larger battleships, the American Montana class and Japanese Super Yamato class, were cancelled. At the end of the war, almost all the world's battleships were decommissioned or scrapped. It is notable that most battleship losses occurred while in port. No battleship was lost to heavy bombers on the open seas, which was considered the most grave aerial peril to battleships prior WWII due to Billy Mitchell and SMS Ostfriesland experiment. The Roma was sunk by a guided bomb, a Fritz X, while underway to surrender. Instead, the true aerial peril to battleships came from small, one to three-man dive bombers and torpedo bombers like the SBD Dauntless and TBF Avenger.

Post World War II

After World War II, several navies retained battleships, but they were now outclassed by carriers. The Italian Giulio Cesare was taken by the Soviets as reparations and renamed Novorossiysk; it was sunk by a German mine in the Black Sea 29 October 1955. The two Doria class ships were scrapped in the late 1950s. The French Lorraine was scrapped in 1954, Richelieu in 1964 and Jean Bart in 1970. Britain's four surviving King George V class ships were scrapped around 1958, and Vanguard around 1960. All other surviving British battleships were scrapped in the late 1940s. The Soviet Union's Petropavlovsk was scrapped in 1953, Sevastopol in 1957 and Gangut in 1959, Brazil's Minas Gerais was scrapped in 1954 (sister ship Sao Paulo sank in a storm in 1951), Argentina kept its two Rivadavia class ships until 1956, Chile kept Canada until 1959, and the Turkish battlecruiser Yavuz (formerly the German Goeben, launched in 1911) was scrapped in 1976 after an offer to sell it back to Germany was refused. Sweden had several coastal battleships which survived until the 1970s. The Russians also scrapped four large incomplete cruisers in the late 1950s. There were also some old sailing battleships still around. All but HMS Victory were sunk or scrapped by 1957. Goeben Goeben]] The battleships gained a new lease of life in the USN as fire support ships. Shipborne artillery support is considered by USMC as more accurate, more effective and less expensive than aerial strikes. Radar and computer controlled gunfire can be aimed with pinpoint accuracy to target. The United States recommissioned all four Iowa-class battleships for the Korean War and New Jersey for the Vietnam War. These were primarily used for shore bombardment. All four were modernized and recommissioned under the Reagan administration and converted to carry Tomahawk missiles, with New Jersey seeing action bombarding Lebanon, while Missouri and Wisconsin fired their 16-inch (406 mm) guns at land targets and launched missiles in the Gulf War of 1991. This will most likely be the last combat action ever by a battleship. All four were decommissioned in the early 1990s, the last battleships to see active service. Missouri, and New Jersey are now museums at Pearl Harbor and Camden, N.J. respectively. Wisconsin also functions as a museum (at Norfolk, Va.), but is still on the NVR, and the public can only tour the deck, with the rest of ship closed off. Iowa (at Suisun Bay) and Wisconsin are in the Naval Reserve Fleet, and could be re-activated. From the late 1970s onwards, the Soviet Union (later Russia) built four large nuclear-powered Kirov class missile cruisers (Raketny Kreyser (Rocket Cruiser)), one of which is still running as of 2005. Their introduction had been one of the factors leading to the re-instatement of the Iowas. The ships, while comparatively big for a cruiser, are not battleships in the traditional sense; they adhere to the design premise of a large missile cruiser and lack traditional battleship traits such as heavy armor and significant shore bombardment capability. For example, at ~26,000 tons displacement they are near double the Krasina class missile cruisers (~11,000 tons), but half the Iowa class (~55,000 tons). Battleships still in existence as museums include the American USS Massachusetts, North Carolina, Alabama and Texas, the British HMS Mary Rose, Victory and Warrior, the Japanese Mikasa, the Swedish Vasa, the Dutch Buffel and Schorpioen, and the Chilean Huascar. (See :Category:Museum ships for other museum ships). USS Iowa and USS Wisconsin are maintained in accordance with the National Defense Authorization Act of 1996, which includes the following battleship readiness requirements: # List and maintain at least two Iowa-class battleships on the Naval Vessel Register that are in good condition and able to provide adequate fire support for an amphibious assault; # Retain the existing logistical support necessary to keep at least two Iowa-class battleships in active service, including technical manuals, repair and replacement parts, and ordnance; and # Keep the two battleships on the register until the Navy certified that it has within the fleet an operational surface fire support capability that equals or exceeds the fire support capability that the Iowa-class battleships would be able to provide for the Marine Corps' amphibious assaults and operations ashore. (Section 1011) [http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/bb-61.htm Source] Current plans in the United States Navy call for keeping Iowa and Wisconsin on the register until the naval surface fire support gun and missile development programs achieve operational capability, which is expected to occur sometime between 2003 and 2008. If and when Iowa and Wisconsin are removed from the Naval Vessel Register there is a high probabilty that interest groups will request that they be placed on donation hold and transfered for use as museums.

Fictional appearances

The term "battleship" often makes an appearance in military-oriented science fiction, where they often occupy a role similar to their historical one. It should be noted that some writers have come to believe "battleship" is synonymous with "warship", and thus we see strange classifications like "light battleship" or "small battleship". Sometimes the futuristic battleships are actually large spacecraft warships operating in outer space, rather than the open ocean.

See also


- Battleships throughout history (table only)
- List of ships of the Royal Navy
- List of battleships of the United States Navy
- List of Russian/USSR battleships
- List of ships of the Canadian Navy
- List of ships of the Japanese Navy
- List of ships of the Norwegian Navy
- Naval ship
- United States battleships
- Crossing the T

External links


- [http://www.friesian.com/dreadnot.htm "Dreadnought" by Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D.]
- [http://hazegray.org/navhist/battleships/ World Battleship Lists] at hazegray.org
- [http://www.wideopenwest.com/~jenkins/ironclads/foreign.htm List of early armored ships]
- [http://www.maritimequest.com/warship_directory/us_navy_pages/us_battleship_list.htm Maritimequest U.S. Battleship photo index]
- [http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/battleships.htm GlobalSecurity.org]
- [http://www.ussmissouri.com/VDO_on_demand.aspx?Name=TurretOps_GunRoom.wmv Video: Inside one of Missouri’s 16" gun room, about 1955. (Windows Media File)] Category:Ship types Category:Battleships ko:전함 ms:Kapal perang ja:戦艦

Lead ship

The lead ship is the first of a series or class of ships all constructed according to the same general design. Large ships are complicated internally, and may take a long time to construct, as much as five to 10 years, so it is rare to have two of them that are completely identical. The second and later ships often must be started before the first one is even launched. Nevertheless, building copies is still more efficient than building prototypes, and so the lead ship will be the one that guides the construction of the others in its class. In the United States Navy, since the 20th century to the present, the lead ship usually lends its name to the ship class, as in Pennsylvania class battleship, whose lead ship was USS Pennsylvania (BB-38), or more recently Los Angeles class submarine named after USS Los Angeles (SSN-688). Also, hull numbers are sometimes used informally to refer to the class (such as the "688-class" in the case of the Los Angeles-class). In other navies, the class can be named after either the lead ship (as in the Royal Navy's Invincible-class carrier) or after a theme (as in the Royal Navy's Tribal-class frigates).

Yamato class battleship

] The Yamato class battleships of the Imperial Japanese Navy were the largest naval vessels of World War II and the largest battleships ever, in terms of tonnage. The class consisted of two vessels:
- Yamato
- Musashi A third vessel was begun as a battleship, and completed as an aircraft carrier:
- Shinano A fourth, unnamed vessel (simply referred to as "Hull Number 111") was scrapped while 30% completed. Category:Ship classes Category:Battleships ja:大和型戦艦

Japanese battleship Musashi

Musashi (武蔵), named after the ancient Japanese Musashi Province, was a battleship belonging to the Imperial Japanese Navy, and was the second and final ship of the Yamato class to be completed as a battleship. With her sister ship, Yamato, she was a member of the largest and most heavily armed and armored class of battleships ever constructed. In June of 1937, executives from the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard including Director Kensuke Watanabe and yard engineer Kumao Baba were ordered to begin preparations for construction and fitting out of one of the new series of battleships. Expansions of the Number 2 slipway had originally inspired naval executives to issue Nagasaki Shipyard the lucrative contract. Floating cranes of 150 and 350 metric tons capacity were built for heavy lifts. Built under the strictest of security, the battleship was launched November 1 1939, and spent the better part of eighteen months fitting out. The completion date was revised to accommodate the changes requested by the Navy, including strengthening armor on the 15.5cm turrets, and the installation of extra communications gear. Commissioned on 5 August 1942, she proceeded to Truk Lagoon, where Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto made Musashi his flagship. After he was killed on 18 April 1943 after being shot down in the Solomons theater of operations, Musashi returned to Japan carrying his ashes. Musashi returned to Truk on 5 August 1943, and remained there until 10 February 1944. Her only activity during this time was a sortie toward the Marshall Islands, which resulted in no contact with American forces. On 29 March 1944, Musashi was hit by one torpedo from the submarine USS Tunny, and had to return to Japan for repairs and modifications to her anti-aircraft armament. She formed part of Vice-Admiral Takeo Kurita's Centre Force along with Yamato at the Battle of Leyte Gulf. During this battle on 24 October 1944, she was attacked by American carrier-based aircraft armed with bombs and torpedoes. After taking 17 bomb and 20 torpedo hits and 18 near misses, the ship capsized to port, and sank at 1935hrs. on October 24, taking more than 1023 of her 2399 crew with her; 1376 of the crew were rescued by the destroyers Kiyoshimo and Shimakaze. For more details on this class of ship, see the entry for Yamato. Yamato Yamato 1944.]]

References


- Akira Yoshimura, Battleship Musashi: The Making and Sinking of the World's Biggest Battleship, (Kodansha America, New York, 1991) (Orig. published in Japanese as Senkan Musashi (Shinchosh, Ltd., 1991)); The first half of the book describes the engineering and building of the ship and construction facilities, including the launching; the second half is dedicated to the final battle, an analysis of the battle damage, and its sinking. Includes drawings of internal arrangements of the ship.
- Siegfried Breyer, Battleships and Battlecruisers 1905-1970 (Doubleday and Company; Garden City, New York, 1973) (originally published in German as Schlachtschiffe und Schlachtkreuzer 1905-1970, J.F. Lehmanns, Verlag, Munchen, 1970). Contains various line drawings of the ship as designed and as built.
- Robert Gardiner, ed., Conway’s All the World’s Fighting Ships 1922 - 1946 (Conway Maritime Press, London, 1980)
- William H. Gargke, Jr., and Robert O. Dulin, Jr., Battleships: Axis and Neutral Battlehips in World War II (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 1985)

External links


- [http://www.combinedfleet.com/musashi.htm IJN Musashi: Tabular Record of Movement]
- [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/HIJMS_Musashi Wikimedia Commons images] Musashi Category:Battle of Leyte Gulf ja:武蔵 (戦艦)

Washington Naval Treaty

The Washington Naval Treaty limited the naval armaments of its five signatories. It was signed by representatives of the United States of America, the British Empire, Japan, France, and Italy in Washington, DC, on February 6 1922. The US Senate advised ratification on March 29 1922; the President of the United States ratified it on June 9 1923; the ratifications were deposited with the Government of the United States on August 17, 1923, and were proclaimed on August 21 1923.

Background

In the aftermath of World War I, the major nations embarked upon large programmes of new capital ships (battleships). The United States had declared an aim to produce a navy "second to none". In the face of recession and the fact that the largest navies were the British and Japanese, who had a mutual defence treaty, that ambition was seen to be unrealistic, even ruinous. The United States initiated a treaty to limit the largest ships in each of the signatory nations.

Terms

After specifying some exceptions for ships in current use and under construction, the treaty limited the total capital ship tonnage of each of the signatories: the United States Navy and the Royal Navy could not exceed 525,000 tons (533,000 t), the French Navy and the Italian Navy were limited to 175,000 tons (178,000 t), and the Japanese Navy to 315,000 tons (320,000 t). No single ship could exceed 35,000 tons (35,560 t), and no ship could carry a gun in excess of 16 inches (406 mm). The tonnage was defined in the treaty to exclude fuel because Britain argued that their global activities demanded higher fuel loads than other nations and they should not be penalised. Aircraft carriers were addressed specifically: the total tonnage for carriers of the United States and the British Empire was limited to 135,000 tons (137,000 t); for France and Italy 60,000 tons (61,000 t); and for Japan 81,000 tons (82,000 t). Only two carriers per nation could exceed 27,000 tons (27,400 t), and those two were limited to 33,000 tons (33,500 t) each. The number of large guns carried by an aircraft carrier was sharply limited—it was not legal to put a small aircraft on a battleship and call it an aircraft carrier. As to fortifications and naval bases, the United States, the British Empire, and Japan agreed to maintain the status quo at the time of the signing. No new fortifications or naval bases could be established, and existing bases and defences could not be improved in the territories and possessions specified. In general, the specified areas allowed construction on the main coasts of the countries, but not on smaller island territories. For example, the United States could build on Hawaii and the Alaskan mainland, but not on the Aleutian Islands. The various navies of the British Empire — considered under the treaty as one entity — were treated similarly and the facilities of the Royal Australian Navy (which had to give up the battlecruiser HMAS Australia) and the New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy could be built up by their respective governments, but not the base of Hong Kong. Japan could build on the home islands, but not Formosa. On December 29 1934, the Japanese government gave notice that it intended to terminate the treaty. Its provisions remained in force until the end of 1936, and it was not renewed.

Effects

In Europe, the Treaty changed planned building programs for most of the signatories. The British gave up their planned N3 battleships and G3 battlecruisers. Almost all of the forces built new designs in the new "heavy cruiser" class, but at the same time few new battleships were built. Instead, extensive conversions were made to existing battleships and battlecruisers, resulting in fleets in World War II that consisted primarily of ships laid-down before World War I. The United States built no new battleships until the keel of North Carolina was laid in October 1937 — a span of nearly 20 years. A number of attempts were made to build new battleship designs within the Treaty limitations. The need to increase armor and firepower while keeping weight under the Washington limit resulted in experimental new designs like the British Nelson-class (based in part on the G3 design) and the French Richelieu. In general ship effectiveness is related to speed, armor and armament. Weight is related to ship length which permits higher speeds. Each nation used a different approach to circumvent the treaties. The US used high strength boilers for higher speeds in a smaller ship. Germany used high strength steels for better armor and lower weight. Britain designed ships that could have armor added after a war began, and in the case of HMS Rodney and HMS Nelson used waterfilled "fuel tanks" as armour. Italy simply lied about the tonnage of their ships. Japan withdrew from the treaty in 1936, and continued the building program that they had previously begun, to include placing 18.1 inch (460 mm) guns on battleship Yamato. Few European forces operated at long ranges from land, and therefore there was little interest in aircraft carrier construction. The Germans, French and Italians did not bother with carriers until WWII was clearly looming, at which point all of them started construction in small numbers. The Royal Navy, tasked with long-range operations the world over, clearly needed carriers and so continued construction. Between 1920 (prior to the treaty) and the start of WWII the British built six new carriers of various one-off classes. The US had six carriers at the start of the war, not including the old CV-1, Langley, as she had been converted to a seaplane carrier (AV-3) in 1936 to allow for the completion of Wasp (CV-7). After the Washington Treaty terminated, the US laid down six new carriers, starting with Hornet (CV-8) (a repeat Yorktown) and Essex (CV-9) (the first of a new class). Japan converted incomplete battleship Kaga and battlecruiser Akagi to aircraft carriers to conform to Washington Naval Treaty. These conversions provided much needed experiences and helped to build future classes of aircraft carriers. Japan had ten carriers at the start of the war. The effects of the Treaty on the United States could not have been more different. The Treaty, coupled with the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, was a major cause of the United States Navy's conversion from a battleship fleet to a carrier-based force. The United States was over the limits in capital ships when the treaty was ratified, and had to decommission or disarm several older vessels in order to comply. However, the only aircraft carrier in the US fleet before the treaty was signed was USS Langley (CV-1) (11,500 tons, 11,700 t), a converted collier. Not only did carriers have separate limits, but as an experimental vessel, Langley did not count against the tonnage restrictions. The US Navy thus had a free rein to build carriers. In the 1920s the Department of the Navy had a low opinion of the concept of naval aviation despite (or perhaps because of) Billy Mitchell's 1921 success in using Army bombers to sink the captured German battleship Ostfriesland. However, to comply with the treaty, two battlecruisers of the Lexington class still under construction, USS Lexington (CC-1) (43,500 tons, 44,200 t) and USS Saratoga (CC-3) (43,500 tons, 44,200 t), had to be disposed of. They were converted into carriers USS Lexington (CV-2) (33,000 tons, 33,500 t) and USS Saratoga (CV-3) (33,000 tons, 33,500 t), although that choice was only slightly preferred over scrapping. However they were also equipped with eight 8-inch guns, the maximum number of that calibre allowed by the treaty for aircraft carriers bigger than 27,000 tons. In 1931, the United States was still well under the treaty's limit on carriers. USS Ranger (CV-4) (14,500 tons, 14,700 t) was the first US carrier designed as such — no other class of capital ship could be built — and the Navy began incorporating the lessons from those first four carriers into the design of two more. In 1933, Congress passed Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal" package of legislation, which included nearly $40 million for the two new carriers: Yorktown (CV-5) (19,800 tons, 20,100 t) and Enterprise (CV-6) (19,800 tons, 20,100 t). Still bound by the 135,000 ton (137,000 t) limit, the keel of the final US pre-war Treaty carrier Wasp (CV-7) (14,700 tons, 14,900 t) was laid down on April 1, 1936. The US Carrier Fleet now totaled 135,000 tons (137,000 t) and there it remained until the treaty was terminated by Japan in 1936.

External links


- [http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/pre-war/1922/nav_lim.html The text of the Washington treaty] Category:Arms control Category:Naval history Category:Treaties Category:1923 in law ja:ワシントン海軍軍縮条約

1937

1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar).

Events

January


- January 1 - Anastasio Somoza becomes President of Nicaragua
- January 11 - The first issue of Look magazine goes on sale in the United States.
- January 19 - Howard Hughes sets a new air record by flying from Los Angeles to New York City in 7 hours, 28 minutes and 25 seconds.
- January 23 - In Moscow, 17 leading Communists go on trial accused of participating in a plot led by Leon Trotsky to overthrow Joseph Stalin's regime and assassinate its leaders.
- January 31 - Ohio river floods
- January 31 - 31 people executed in the Soviet Union for "Trotskyism"

February


- February 5 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposes a plan to enlarge the Supreme Court of the United States.
- February 8 - Falangist troops take Málaga
- February 11 - A sit-down strike ends when General Motors recognises the United Automobile Workers Union
- February 16 - Wallace H. Carothers receives a patent for nylon.
- February 19 - During a public ceremony at the Viceregal Palace (the former Imperial residence) in Addis Ababa Ahmed, Ethiopia, two Eritrean nationalists attempt to kill viceroy Rodolfo Graziani with a number of grenades. The Italian security guard fire into the crowd of Ethiopian onlookers, and over the passing weeks indiscriminately slaughter native Ethiopians in reprisal.
- February 21 - Initial flight of the first successful flying car, Waldo Waterman's Arrowbile; the League of Nations Non-Intervention Committee ban on foreign national "volunteers" in the Spanish Civil War.

March


- March - The first issue of the comic book Detective Comics is published in the United States. Twenty-seven issues later, Detective Comics would introduce Batman. The comic would go on to become the longest continually-published comic magazine in American history; it is still published as of 2005.
- March 10 - The Encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge of pope Pius XI is published in Nazi Germany
- March 18 - The New London School explosion kills three hundred.
- March 26 - In Crystal City, Texas spinach growers erect a statue of the cartoon character Popeye.
- March 26 - William Henry Hastie becomes the first African-American appointed to federal judgeship.

April


- April 1 - Aden becomes a British crown colony.
- April 17 - Release of the animated short Porky's Duck Hunt, directed by Tex Avery for the Merrie Melodies series, featuring the debut of Daffy Duck.
- April 26 - Spanish Civil War: Guernica, Spain is bombed by German Luftwaffe.
- April 26 - In his report of the Falangist attack on Guernica, British journalist George Steer reports that he had found German bomb casing; that means that Luftwaffe planes were connected with the attack

May

Luftwaffe, with their daughters Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret.]]
- May 1 - General strike in Paris, France
- May 6 - In United States, the German airship Hindenburg bursts into flame when mooring to a mast in Lakehurst.
- May 7 - Spanish Civil War: The German Condor Legion Fighter Group, equipped with Heinkel He 51 biplanes arrive in Spain to assist Francisco Franco's forces.
- May 12 - Coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth takes place at Westminster Abbey, London.
- May 21 - As one of the reprisals for the attempted assassination of Italian viceroy Rodolfo Graziani, a detachment of Italian troops massacre the entire community of Debre Libanos. 297 monks and 23 laymen are killed.
- May 27 - In California, the Golden Gate Bridge opens to pedestrian traffic creating a vital link between San Francisco and Marin County. The next day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt pushes a button in Washington, DC signaling the start of vehicle traffic over the Golden Gate Bridge.
- May - Dáil Éireann passes the Executive Authority (Consequential Provisions) Act, 1937 which retrospectively abolishes the office of Governor-General of the Irish Free State. The abolition is retrospectively dated to December 1936.

June


- June 8 - First total solar eclipse to exceed 7 minutes of totality in over 800 years; visible in the Pacific and Peru.
- June 14 - Pennsylvania becomes the first (and only) of the United States to celebrate Flag Day officially as a state holiday.
- June 21 - Coalition government of Leon Blum resigns in France.
- June/July - Dáil Éireann debates and passes the draft new constitution of Éire, to be called Bunreacht na hÉireann. The new constitution is then submitted for public approval by plebiscite.

July


- July 1 - Gestapo arrests priest Martin Niemöller.
- July 1 - In a referendum the people of the Irish Free State accept the new Constitution by 685,105 votes to 527,945.
- July 2 - Amelia Earhart disappears
- July 5 - Highest recorded temperature in Canada, at Yellow Grass, Saskatchewan: 45 °C.
- July 7 - Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Lugou Bridge - Japanese forces invade China.
- July 21 - Eamon de Valera elected president of Eire
- July 22 - New Deal: The United States Senate votes down President Franklin D. Roosevelt's proposal to add more justices to the Supreme Court of the United States.
- July 24 - Alabama drops rape charges against the so-called "Scottsboro Boys."
- July 28 - IRA attempts bombing assassination against King George VI in Belfast.

August


- August 6 - Falangist artillery bombards Madrid.

September


- September 5 - Spanish Civil War: The fall of Llanes.
- September 16 - birth of Keith Bosley, broadcaster (retired), poet and translator.
- September 21 - George Allen & Unwin, Ltd. of London published the first edition of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit.
- September 25 - Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Pingxingguan.

October


- October 1 - Marijuana Tax Act in USA.
- October 3 - Japanese troops advance toward Nanking.
- October 5 - Roosevelt "Quarantine the Aggressors" speech at Chicago
- October 21 - The whole Spanish northern seaboard in the Falangists' hands.
- October 21 - Roberto Ortiz elected president of Argentina.
- October 27 - Spanish Civil War - Republican forces in Gijon, Spain, set fire to petrol reserves before they retreat before the advancing Falangists.

November


- November 5 Spanish Civil War - Massacre of Republican supporters in Piedrafita de Babia, near León. Possibly 35,000 executed.
- November 5 - World War II: In the Reich Chancellery, Adolf Hitler holds a secret meeting and states his plans for acquiring "living space" for the German people.
- November 9 - Japanese troops take Shanghai.

December


- December 3 - The Dandy, the world's longest running comic, was first published.
- December 12 - Panay incident
- December 13 - Battle of Nanjing ends and the Nanjing Massacre begins. Japanese troops would slaughter over 250,000 civilians and prisoners over three months.
- December 27 - Mae West performance gets her banned from NBC Radio
- December 29 - New Irish Constitution, Bunreacht na hÉireann comes into force. The Irish Free State becomes Éire. Eamon de Valera becomes the first Taoiseach (prime minister) of the new state. A Presidential Commission (made up the Irish Chief Justice, the Speaker of Dáil Éireann and the President of the High Court) assumes the powers of the new presidency of Ireland pending the election of the first president in June 1938.
- December - The Marijuana Tax Act is signed, ending the US hemp industry just as it was about to benefit from a mechanised brake and compete with cotton and wood pulp.

Unknown dates


- Japan invades Manchuria. (Some consider this the start of World War II. Most historians disagree).
- New Irish constitution bans divorce.
- First science fiction convention in Leeds, United Kingdom.
- Italy joins Antikomintern Pact.
- The National House Builders Registration Council (now the NHBC) was formed in the United Kingdom.
- Donald Goines (1937 - 1973)
- Jimmie Angel lands his plane on top of Devil's Mountain however the plane gets damaged and he has to trek through the rainforest for help.

Ongoing events


- Spanish Civil War (1936-1939)
- Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945)
- Harlem Renaissance (1920-1940) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlem_Renaissance]

Births

January


- January 1 - Anne Aubrey, British actor
- January 4 - Dyan Cannon, Ameircan actress
- January 6 - Underwood Dudley, American mathematician
- January 8 - Shirley Bassey, Welsh singer
- January 14 - Ken Higgs, English cricketer
- January 15 - Margaret O'Brien, American actress
- January 18 - John Hume, Irish politician, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
- January 27 - John Ogdon, English pianist (d. 1989)
- January 30 - Vanessa Redgrave, English actress
- January 30 - Boris Spassky, Russian chess player
- January 31 - Suzanne Pleshette, Amrican actress
- January 31 - Philip Glass, American composer

February


- February 1 - Garrett Morris, American comedian
- February 1 - Don Everly, American musician
- February 2 - Tom Smothers, American musician and comedian
- February 2 - Magic Sam, American musician (d. 1969)
- February 8 - Manfred Krug, German actor and singer
- February 11 - Bill Lawry, Australian cricketer
- February 12 - Charles Dumas, American athlete
- February 20 - Robert Huber, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
- February 20 - Roger Penske, American race car driver
- February 20 - Nancy Wilson, American singer and actress
- February 21 - King Harald V of Norway
- February 25 - Tom Courtenay, English actor

March


- March 2 - Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Algerian president
- March 4 - Graham Dowling, New Zealand cricket captains
- March 6 - Valentina Tereshkova, cosmonaut
- March 9 - Mickey Gilly, American musician
- March 17 - Rudy Ray Moore, American comedian
- March 20 - Jerry Reed, American musician
- March 22 - Armin Hary, German athlete
- March 23 - Craig Breedlove, American race car driver
- March 30 - Warren Beatty, American actor and director

April


- April 5 - Colin Powell, U.S. Secretary of State
- April 6 - Merle Haggard, American musician
- April 6 - Billy Dee Williams, American actor
- April 10 - Bella Akhmadulina, Russian poet
- April 16 - Joseph Whipp, American actor
- April 22 - Jack Nicholson, American actor
- April 29 - Jill Paton Walsh, English novelist

May


- May 1 - Una Stubbs, British actor
- May 8 - Thomas Pynchon, American writer
- May 6 - Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter, American boxer
- May 12 - George Carlin, American comedian
- May 13 - Roch Carrier, Canadian writer
- May 13 - Roger Zelazny, American writer (d. 1995)
- May 15 - Madeleine Albright, U.S. Secretary of State
- May 15 - Trini López, American musician
- May 17 - Hazel R. O'Leary, U.S. Secretary of Energy
- May 18 - Brooks Robinson, baseball player
- May 18 - Jacques Santer, Luxembourg politician, President of the European Council

June


- June 1 - Morgan Freeman, American actor
- June 3 - Solomon P. Ortiz, U.S. Congressman from Texas
- June 7 - Neemi Järvi, Estonian conductor
- June 9 -