HIJMS Wakamiya and the Early Development of Japanese Naval Air Power

Abstract

The British merchant steamship Lethington was captured by the Japanese in 1905 during the Russo-Japanese War, converted into a seaplane tender in 1914 and then transformed into the aircraft carrier Wakamiya in 1920. At Tsingtao in September 1914 she became the first vessel in history to handle naval aircraft in action. This paper examines the early moves by the Imperial Japanese Navy to create their own carrier-borne air arm and explores aspects of the British involvement in this process.

Keywords:

• Lethington
• Wakamiya
• Russo-Japanese War
• naval aviation
• Tsingtao
• Hosho
• British Civil Air Mission
• Imperial Japanese Navy

Notes

¹ University of Glasgow, Archives and Business Records Centre. Ref: GD320/5/3/5.

² The Scotsman, 24 Oct. 1904.

³ The Scotsman, 14 and 16 Jan. 1905; The Times, 15 Jan. 1905.

⁴ National Archives, Kew (hereafter NA) FO 262/1466.

⁵ Lloyd's List, 11 Apr. 1905.

⁶ Nihon Kaigun Kokushi, vol. 1, 778/780; see also Kaigun Seido Enkaku, vol. 14 , Manoeuvres. The author is grateful to Masahiko Miyake for the translation.

⁷ Treaty signed at Peking on 6 Mar. 1898, lease of Kiaochow. China Year Book, 1938, 93.

⁸ NA ADM 137/35. ‘British troops consisting of 970 men, 240 Chinese coolies, 98 wagons and 200 mules. Landed on 23 September 1914’. Their commander was Brigadier N. W. Barnardiston (1858–1919).

⁹ Cdr Tsunataro Iyama was in command of the Wakamiya Maru. Nihon Kaigun Kokushi, vol. 4, 22.

¹⁰ NA ADM 137/35. Narrative of the Events in Connection with the Siege, Blockade and Reduction of the Fortress of Tsingtao by Lt Cdrs G. S. F. Nash and G. Gipps. Henry Farman 100 h.p. machines rendered the most effective service.

¹¹ NA ADM 137/35. Report dated 30 Nov. 1914.

¹² Letter 3, Jan. 2003, from Dr Dieter Hartwig of Deutscher Marinebund e.V. who quotes from Der Krieg zur See 1914–1918. In an email to the author dated 15 Jan. 2003 Dr Lars Scholl of Deutsches Schiffahrtmuseum confirmed that Japanese forces commenced bombing the German fortress at Tsingtao on 5 Sep. 1914 but that in the course of the siege there is no record that any German warship was hit by air attack.

¹³ Nihon Kaigun Kokushi, 69–79. The author is grateful to Masahiko Miyake for the translation.

¹⁴ Layman, Before the Aircraft Carrier, 87; Jane's, 1924.

¹⁵ Nihon Kaigun Kokushi.

¹⁶ Before the Aircraft Carrier, 86. Chikuzen Maru, steel screw steamer, 2,578 grt., built in Glasgow in 1907, owned by Nippon Yusen Kaisha. Lloyds Register.

¹⁷ In pre-war civilian life the single screw steam freighter Wachtfels, 5,809 grt., built in 1913 for Hansa Line, Bremen. 11 knots. Lloyds Register.

¹⁸ RAF Museum, London, file X001-2315.

¹⁹ Bywater, Sea-Power in the Pacific, 239.

²⁰ National Institute for Defense Studies Library, Tokyo. Letter to the author dated 6 Jan. 2003. Nihon Kaigun Kokushi. See NA ADM 53/35182 and AIR 1/665/17/122/716 for first aerial torpedo attack data, 12 Aug. 1915. Of the officers who submitted such reports both Yozo Kaneko and Hideho Wada had served as aviators operating from Wakamiya Maru during the siege of Tsingtao, Sep. 1914.

²¹ Military History Department, National Institute for Defense Sudies, Tokyo, pers. comm., letter addressed to the author, 25 Dec. 1998.

²² Friedman, British Carrier Aviation, 73. Author's notes: H.M.S. Hermes: 1923–1942.

²³ Nihon Kaigun Kokushi, vol. 2.

²⁴ NA FO 371/6693. Foreign Office letter dated 22 Feb. 1921, F557/421/23:‘the original request which was pressed by the Japanese Embassy for the despatch of a Naval Mission, was refused on Naval grounds.’

²⁵ Extracts from Nihon Kaigun Kokushi, vol. 2. References to American press criticism, Hearst being mentioned by name, also may be found in British Foreign Office correspondence: NA FO 371/6693 in a letter dated 29 Jul. 1921 written by Lord Curzon to the Secretary of State for Air.

²⁷ Nihon Kaigun Kokushi, vol. 2.

²⁶ Cdr William Francis Forbes-Sempill, 19th Baron Sempill, 24 Sep. 1893–30 Dec. 1965. During the First World War he served in both RFC and RNAS; colonel, RAF, April 1918; retired from the RAF, July 1919 (entry in Who's Who).

²⁸ Giving their honorary IJN ranks, this advance party consisted of Lt Cdrs Herbert George Brackley and F. B. Fowler and Lt A. G. Loton. They left Southampton on 12 Mar. 1921 in the Cunard liner Aquitania, travelled by train from New York to Ottawa and then across Canada, arriving at Yokohama on 16 April in the N.Y.K.'s Suwa Maru. See Brackley, Brackle. Extracts from this book kindly made available to the author by the RAF Museum, Hendon, London.

²⁹ Letter dated 4 Jan. 1923, Col the Master of Sempill writing to the Secretary, Air Ministry. The colonel's reference, extract from AM. 745465/27; Air Ministry reference, 149342/22/S.7 Medals. Copy kindly provided for the author by the Ministry of Defence, Air Historical Branch (RAF).

³⁰ Sempill, ‘The British Aviation Mission’, 560, 564.

³¹ Barnes, Shorts Aircraft Since 1900, 154.

³² Nihon Kaigun Kokushi, vol. 3, 407.

³³ The author is grateful to Yasuo Yasaki, managing director of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Europe Ltd, letter dated 4 Jul. 2000.

³⁵ Brackley, Brackles, 175.

³⁴ Personal communication, Military History Department, National Institute for Defense Sudies, Tokyo. The author is grateful for kind translation assistance given by Teruaki Ishimaru in Feb. 2000.

³⁶ Nihon Kaigun Kokushi Vol. 3, 407.

³⁷ Office of Naval Intelligence, Monthly Information Bulletin, vol. 9, no.7, January 1927, 39–41.

³⁸ Military History Department, National Institute for Defense Sudies, Tokyo, pers. comm.

³⁹ Two further British naval air training missions went to Japan in 1929 and 1931. Coox, ‘The Rise and Fall of Imperial Japanese Air Forces’, 88.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jonathan Parkinson

Jonathan Mark Parkinson retired from the merchant shipping business in which he was employed ashore between 1960 and 1988 in Sarawak, the Bahamas, South Africa, Belgium and the USA. Since 1988 he has researched aspects of naval history, usually concerned with the old China Station of the Royal Navy: 1864–1941. He has published a number of articles and notes in The Mariner's Mirror, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society: Hong Kong Branch, The Naval Review and elsewhere.