Sōryū

1942

Midway, three bombs in three minutes Location: Pacific Ocean, NW of Midway Atoll · Coordinates: 30.50°N 179.17°W · Casualties: 711 · Survivors: 392 · Depth: 5,400 m · Cause: aerial attack — Struck by three bombs from USS Yorktown's VB-3 between 10:25 and 10:28 on 4 June 1942. Aviation fuel and ordnance on the flight deck ignited instantly. Abandoned within the hour; USS Nautilus put a final torpedo into her that evening and she sank at 19:13. · Fate: abyssal · located 2019 · Type: aircraft carrier · Tonnage: 15,900 tons · Crew: 1103 · Flag: Empire of Japan · Launched: 1935 Fast fleet carrier of the Kidō Butai, veteran of Pearl Harbor and the Indian Ocean raid. At Midway on 4 June 1942, struck by three bombs from USS Yorktown's VB-3 in three minutes. Abandoned within the hour; USS Nautilus put a final torpedo into her and she sank that evening. 711 dead, 392 survived. The Vessel The Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carrier Sōryū ("Blue Dragon") was the lead ship of her class, a pair of medium fleet carriers built to a specific Japanese design philosophy: fast, light, and carrying larger aircraft complements than their smaller displacement would suggest. She was commissioned at the Kure Naval Arsenal on 29 December 1937, 227 metres long, 15,900 tons, capable of 34.5 knots, and carried 63 aircraft (21 fighters, 18 dive bombers, 21 torpedo bombers, 3 reserves). She was the first Japanese carrier designed from the keel up as an aircraft carrier; her hull form had been optimised for aircraft operations rather than converted from a larger warship type. Her sister Hiryū, commissioned in 1939, was the same design but with a port-side island rather than the starboard-side arrangement typical of all other carriers. The two ships operated as a close pair from 1939 onward. Their design emphasis on speed and lightness gave them approximately 35 per cent more operational aircraft per thousand tons than the contemporary Akagi and Kaga, a significant operational advantage for Japanese carrier doctrine. Her service record from 1939 through May 1942 was the most operationally successful of any Japanese fleet carrier. She had led the opening attack on Pearl Harbor as part of the First Air Fleet; had participated in every major Kidō Butai operation; and by June 1942 had sunk, directly or indirectly through her aircraft, more Allied ships than any carrier afloat. The Disaster The three American 1,000-pound bombs struck Sōryū in quick succession between 10:25 and 10:26 on 4 June 1942. The first bomb struck her forward flight deck at Frame 25; the second struck her mid-flight deck at Frame 50; the third struck her stern just aft of the island. All three bombs penetrated the flight deck before detonating on the hangar deck below. The pattern of hits was extraordinarily good: the three strikes were distributed along her full length, ensuring that no single damage-control party could contain the resulting fires. Sōryū's hangar deck was filled at the moment of the attack with re-armed Nakajima B5N Kate torpedo bombers, their Type 91 aerial torpedoes (each carrying 204 kilograms of TNT) lying in their bays, and their aircraft fuelled for the second strike. The three bombs, landing among this arrangement, ignited a chain reaction of torpedo and bomb detonations that compressed approximately ten individual aircraft explosions into a six-second sequence. Contemporary American combat photographs of Sōryū from 10:26 show a single continuous pillar of flame rising approximately 1,000 metres above her flight deck. Captain Ryūsaku Yanagimoto, the senior officer aboard, was killed on the bridge within 45 seconds of the first bomb strike. Commander Hisashi Ohara, her executive officer, assumed command. By 10:35, nine minutes after the first strike, Sōryū was on fire from end to end and was unable to manoeuvre. Ohara ordered abandon-ship at 10:40, unusually early i