The Japanese Ministry of Defense announced a strategy in 2015 to strengthen its naval forces, with the aim of improving anti-ship warfare and air defense capabilities.

Later, news broke about the modernization of the Izumo-class helicopter carriers for the possible use of carrier-borne aircraft.

Although aircraft carriers are banned in Japan at the legislative level, the ship is officially classified as a helicopter-carrying destroyer.

In 2019, the Japanese Ministry of Defense officially announced the modernization and acquisition of 42 F-35B fighters. This was the beginning of the restoration of the naval aviation of Japan and its carrier fleet, but the history of the aircraft carrier fleet in Japan began much earlier.

Inception

Japan is a country that, for the first time in the history of shipbuilding, adopted an aircraft carrier. This happened in 1922.

That was Hōshō aircraft carrier, a special-build ship whose main armament consisted of carrier-borne aircraft.

After that and the change of tactics at sea, Japan began the active construction of such ships.

The Hōshō itself became the only aircraft carrier in the Asian region, which allowed the Imperial Japanese Navy to use all its advantages, using the ship against China in the 1930s.

The most famous cases of its operation were the Shanghai Incident and the war against China launched in 1937.

Due to its concept of a floating airfield, the Chinese Air Force could not strike this ship, although such attempts were made.

The World War II period demonstrated the importance of aircraft carriers for Japan.

A large theater of operations needed an additional component for rapid and unexpected attacks over long distances.

This component became naval aviation, which could strike at a distance of a thousand kilometers.

Although there is a common myth that Japan built fewer aircraft carriers and more battleships, in fact, the situation was completely opposite: at the beginning of World War II, the Imperial Japanese Navy had the largest heavy aircraft carrier fleet in the world.

Hostilities in the Pacific Ocean demonstrated the imperfection of aircraft carriers built in the 1930s.

Measures were taken to improve the protection and combat capability of the ship.

The most notable was an armored steel takeoff and landing deck with a closed bow, which the Japanese implemented on the Taihō aircraft carrier. Construction of the ship began in 1941.

That made Japan the second country to build an aircraft carrier with a steel takeoff and landing deck. In first place was the British Empire, with its revolutionary HMS Ark Royal aircraft carrier.

Restoration of the Japanese navy after World War II

The end of World War II and the surrender of the Japanese Empire inflicted a crushing blow on the Japanese navy.

Most of the ships that were built during the war were disposed of and dismantled for metal, and small minesweepers and destroyers formed the basis of the Japan Coast Guard.

But in the period from the 1950s to the 1960s, the increase in the fleet of neighboring countries put Japan at a disadvantage, so it had to find a solution.

In addition to the independent construction of destroyers and submarines, the Maritime Self-Defense Force needed large ships on which it was possible to place an air group for anti-submarine warfare over long distances and the creation of a large net of sonar buoys.

As a result of such efforts, a helicopter-carrying destroyer project under the CVH index was created in 1959.

The project was divided into two subgroups: CVH-a and CVH-b.

The ships were displacing 23 and 11 thousand tons, had an air group with 18 anti-submarine helicopters, 6 S2F anti-submarine patrol aircraft, and 18 anti-submarine helicopters.

This project was the first attempt by post-war Japan to create aircraft carriers.

However, things were not so simple.

At the first meeting of the U.S.-Japan Security Consultative Committee (SCC) on September 8, 1960, Admiral Harry D. Felt, the Commander in Chief of U.S. Pacific Command, met with Japanese Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda, stressing the importance of anti-submarine warfare to counter the threat from Soviet Navy submarines.

He recommended that Japan build a helicopter carrier, to which Prime Minister Ikeda noted that without the help of the United States, Japan couldn’t do that.

At the same time, discussions on the issue were also going on inside the Japanese Defense Agency.

Munemori Akagi, Director of the Japan Defense Agency, actively contributed to the construction of the helicopter carrier. In addition, there was a conflict between the Maritime Self-Defense Forces, which wanted to have the possibility of conducting operations on the high seas, and the Defense Agency, which was solely engaged in creating defense policy within the constitutional territory of Japan.

Due to these problems, in the mid-1960s, Japan had to reject the idea of creating such ships.

Current status and trends

16DDH (Hyuga-class)

The beginning of the 20th century in the Pacific region was marked by the beginning of the construction of a “great” Chinese fleet.

The Maritime Self-Defense Force attempted to improve anti-submarine warfare capabilities during the day, night, and bad weather.

In December 2000, the government decided to build a new helicopter carrier and defined the concept of the ship, which must have:

• a flat deck;
• hangars, and two elevators;
• an air group of 10 or more helicopters.

The design work was quite fast, so in 2004, at the IHI Marine United shipyard, the first sharp steel was made. Construction of the Hyūga and Ise carriers began in 2006 and 2008, respectively.

The ship had a full displacement of 19 thousand tons and was able to operate independently.

For this purpose, 16 Mk.41 Mod.22 vertical launching systems were installed on the ship, and 16 ESSM anti-aircraft guided missiles and 12 VL-ASROC anti-submarine missiles were mounted in its cells.

The air group hangar was designed to contain 18 helicopters.

The main hull consists of 7 decks, and the bridge structure consists of 5.

To reduce the radar cross-section, the hull and island structure are inclined and the surface smoothed. In addition, technical holes have shutters to reduce RCS.

Currently, there are no plans to modernize the Hyūga-class of aircraft carrier, but an anonymous officer of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Forces in 2018 told the Tokyo Shimbun the following information: “We will use the ship for 30 years. In the future, if there is a political solution, the Hyūga-class can be converted into an aircraft carrier at any time.”