Japan's largest carrier died ten days after commissioning. At 3:15 in the morning on 29 November 1944, the submarine USS Archerfish fired six torpedoes at the Shinano from 1,400 yards. Four hit, and seven hours and forty-two minutes later the largest aircraft carrier ever built up to that date rolled over and sank. Her flight deck never launched or landed a single aircraft.
This documentary follows the Shinano from her keel-laying at the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal on 4 May 1940 as the third Yamato-class battleship, through her conversion into a carrier after Midway, to her launch on 8 October 1944, her commissioning on 19 November, and her departure for Kure on 28 November with three escorting destroyers. It covers the missing watertight doors, the unsealed bulkheads, the unfinished fire main and bilge pumps, the untrained crew, the speed and zigzag decisions, and the Archerfish's SJ radar, Torpedo Data Computer and repaired Mark 14 torpedoes. It also traces the fate of Musashi, Taiho, Unryu and Yamato.
Built from the record: after-action reports, damage reconstructions, casualty tables and ship histories. Where sources disagree, including the death toll, this video says so.
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