Japan:
Aircraft carrier
Taiho at anchor, probably at Tawi-Tawi, Philippines. In the background are a Shokaku-class carrier and a Kongo class battleship
Taihō was formally commissioned on 7 March 1944. On 19 June 1944,
Taihō was one of nine Japanese aircraft carriers involved in the
Battle of the Philippine Sea. At 07:45 she turned into the wind to launch her contribution (16 Zeros, 17 "Judy" dive bombers and 9 "Jill" torpedo bombers) to Ozawa's second attack wave. As
Taihō's planes circled overhead to form up, American submarine
USS Albacore, which had spotted Ozawa's carriers earlier that morning, reached an ideal attack position and fired a spread of six torpedoes at the carrier. One of
Taihō's strike pilots, Warrant Officer Sakio Komatsu, saw the torpedo wakes, broke formation and deliberately dived his plane into the path of one torpedo; the weapon detonated short of its target and four of the remaining five missed. The sixth torpedo, however, found its mark and the resulting explosion holed the carrier's hull on the starboard side, just ahead of the island. The impact also fractured the aviation fuel tanks and jammed the forward elevator between the flight deck and upper hangar deck.
With the ship down 1.5 m (5 ft) by the bows due to flooding, the forward elevator pit filled with a mixture of seawater, fuel oil and aviation gasoline,
Taihō's captain marginally reduced her speed by a knot and a half to slow the ingress of seawater into the hull where the torpedo had struck. As no fires had started, Vice-Admiral Ozawa ordered that the open elevator well be planked over by a flight deck damage control party in order to allow resumption of normal flight operations. By 09:20 am, using wooden benches and tables from the petty officers' and sailors' mess rooms, this task was completed. Ozawa then launched two more waves of aircraft.
Meanwhile, leaking aviation gasoline accumulating in the forward elevator pit began
vaporizing and the fumes soon permeated the upper and lower hangar decks. The crew recognised the danger but, through inadequate training, lack of practice or incompetence, their response was ineffectual. They bungled attempts to pump out the damaged elevator well, and failed to cover the fuel with foam from the hangar's fire suppression system.
Because
Taihō's hangars were completely enclosed, mechanical ventilation was the only means of exhausting fouled air and replacing it with fresh air. Ventilation duct gates were opened on either side of hangar sections No. 1 and No. 2 and, for a time, the carrier's aft elevator was lowered to try to increase the draught. But this failed to have any appreciable effect and air operations were resumed about noon, requiring the elevator to be periodically raised as aircraft were brought up to the flight deck. In desperation, damage control parties used hammers to smash out the glass in the ship's portholes.
Taihō's chief damage control officer eventually ordered the ship's general ventilation system switched to full capacity and, where possible, all doors and hatches opened to try to rid the ship of fumes. However, this just resulted in saturation of areas previously unexposed to the vapors and increased the chances of accidental or spontaneous ignition. About 14:30 that afternoon, 6½ hours after the initial torpedo hit,
Taihō was jolted by a severe explosion. A senior staff officer on the bridge saw the flight deck heave up, and the sides of the ship blew out.
Taihō dropped out of formation and began to settle in the water, clearly doomed. Though Admiral Ozawa wanted to go down with the ship, his staff prevailed on him to survive and to transfer his flag to the cruiser
Haguro. Taking the
Emperor's portrait, Ozawa transferred to
Haguro by destroyer. After he left,
Taihō was torn by a second thunderous explosion and sank stern first at 16:28, taking 1,650 officers and men out of a complement of 2,150 down with her
