AKAGI

[shipstamps]

She was built as a battleship by the Kure Dry Dock at Kure for the Japanese Navy.
06 December 1920 laid down, but work on her was cancelled on 05 Feb. 1922.
The intended details should be: Displacement 40.000 ton, dim.826.75 x 101 x 31ft. (draught)
Powered by Gijutsu Honbu turbines, 131.000 shp, four screws, speed 30 knots.
Armament 10 – 16inch, 4 – 4.7 inch guns, 8 – 24 inch torpedo tubes.
Crew 1600.

Her conversion to aircraft carrier commenced in November 1923.
22 April 1925 launched under the name AKAGI, named after a mountain northwest of Tokyo.
Displacement 26.900 tons full load, 260.7x 30 x 8m (draught).
Powered by Gijutsu Honbu turbines, 131.000 shp, speed 31.2 knots, four shafts. 19 Boilers.
Armament 10 – 7.9 inch, 12 – 4.7 inch guns. 22 MG. Could carrier 60 air planes.
Crew 2000.
25 March 1927 completed.

The Amagi Class battle-cruisers were laid down as part of the 8-8 plans, which was intended to provide Japan with eight battleships and eight modern battle cruisers in answer to the USA’s large building program of 1916.
However, the entire program was cancelled under the terms of the Washington Treaty.
Japan was allowed to convert two Amagi’s class battleships in aircraft carriers, to balance with the British and American.
Although AMAGI began her conversion she was damaged beyond repair by the Tokyo earthquake of 01 September 1923 and had to be scrapped. The Tosa class battleship KAGA was therefore reprieved and converted in her stead.
As first converted AKAGI had a main flight deck 624 ft. long, with two lifts from the hangars. She was completed with an island, but was soon given a small navigation bridge to starboard. There was a clumsy arrangement of funnel uptakes on the starboard side amidships. The fore-funnel exhausted at an angle downwards, but the aft funnel was vertical and frequently exhausted smoke and fumes over the main flight deck.. The 7.9 inch guns were arranged in two twin turrets on the lower hangar flight deck forward, and in individual casemates in the hull at the stem. She had two lifts, and her flight deck sloped up from the stern to a point just aft of the funnels to aid landing aircraft.

After commissioned used for trials and development service during the early years of Japanese naval aviation.
.
She was reconstructed at the Sasebo Navy yard between October 1935 and August 1938.
After her conversion her displacement was 41.300 ton full load, dim. 260.6 x 31.25 x8.7m. (draught).
Armament 6 – 8 inch, 6 – 4.7 inch, 28 – 25mm AA guns.
Aircraft 72, maximum 91.

Her second funnel was removed, and the remaining enlarged, and her flight deck lengthened.

After her refit was she the flagship of Carrier Division 1, and used in the southern China and Hainan Islands areas from April 1939 to the middle of February 1940 in the second Sino-Japanese war (1931-1945), before she headed home.

1941 Flagship of Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo’s First Air Fleet, at that time she was under command of Captain Kiichi Hasegawa, and she was training for the attack on Pearl Harbor from September 1941.

26 November 1941 together with a fleet of thirty ships she sailed from Japan for the planned attack on Pearl Harbor.
Just before 06.00 in the morning of 7 December the first 186 aircrafts take off from the decks of the aircraft carriers and headed for Hawaii.
The destructing was overwhelming in Pearl Harbor after the attack, 2.403 killed and 1178 wounded, and most of the warships in port were destroyed or badly damaged.

20 January 1942 she covered the landings in Rabaul, New Guinea. In April her planes took part in attacks on Colombo and Trincomalee, Ceylon, the aircraft carrier HMS HERMES and the cruiser DORSETSHIRE and CORNWALL were sunk, but the Japanese lost many aircraft, and the AKAGI had to return to Japan for new planes.

When the Japanese planned an attack on Midway to destroy the American base there, the American were better informed than during the attack on Pearl Harbor.
And when the AKAGI sailed for Medway, together with three other carriers the KAGA, SORYU and HIRYU and battleships, cruisers and destroyers, escorting a large fleet of troop and supply ships for an intended landing on Midway.
The air attack was on land-based targets in the Midway Islands, and the aircraft on the AKAGI were armed with bombs, for precaution the second wave was armed with torpedoes, which were mostly used for attacks on ships. 04 June 1942 the first wave of planes took off from the carriers, after the attack the land based targets needed more attention, and the planes on standby were mostly rearmed with bombs.
Shortly after the second wave took off a Japanese reconnaissance plane reported a US fleet 240 miles from Midway.
Nagumo got now in the problems, he could not launch his torpedo planes before the first wave, which returned to the carriers from Midway had landed, the first plane landed at 08.37, and he decided to launch a attack on the US ships on 10.30.
After 09.30 the first American wave of 46 torpedo bombers arrived, but 40 were shot down before she reached the target, only 6 returned to the carriers. The Japanese fleet remained unscathed.
Just before 10.30, the second American wave of dive bombers arrived, the Japanese carriers with there fully armed and fueled planes ready on deck to take off, were an easy target, within 5 minutes the three Japanese aircraft carriers were taken out of action by exploding ammunition and planes.
Nagumo had to abandon his flagship AKAGI and transferred his flag to the light cruiser NAGARA.
The AKAGI was the next morning when she was still burning torpedoed by destroyer NOAKE and ARASHI on 04.55 of 05 June in position 30 30N 179 40W and she sank with the loss of more as 270 crew.

Dominica 1991 10c sg 1470, scott 1368. 1995 $2 sg 1975, scott 1776e.
Grenadines of St Vincent $1 sg 785, scott 818b.
Guyana 1991 $50 sg 3197, scott 2452a.
Marshall Islands 1991 50c sg 379, scott 291, 1992 50c sg 424, scott 312.
Norfolk Island 1992 $1.05 sg 533.
Palau Island 1991 29c sg 504, scott 299d.
Paraquay 1983 1g sg?, scott 2088c
Solomon Islands 1993 30c sg?, scott 756 1995 95c sg 832, scott 799


Source: Watercraft Philately CD-ROM Ships on Stamps. Ships of the World by Lincoln P Paine. Jane’s Fighting ships of World War II. Some web-sites.

[Arturo]

Akagi IJN

Palau 1991, S.G.?, Scott: 299a.

St. Vincent Grenadines 1991, S.G.?, Scott: 818b.

[aukepalmhof]

Dominica 1991 10c sg1479, scott1368 and 45c sg 1472, scott 1370.
Grenadines of St Vincent 1991 $1 sg 785, scott 818b.
St Tomé et Principe 2021 Db31.00 sg?, Scott? Although this edition was authorized by the São Tomés Postal Administration, it was not sold in São Tomé, only distributed for trade by the São Tomés philatelic agency.