Fifth Fleet Attacks Japanese Carriers at Kure Naval Station

Three Japanese aircraft carriers and an unidentified submarine in Kure Bay, during strikes by US Navy carrier planes, March 19, 1945. Carrier at the extreme right is IJN Kaiyo. Those in the center top (barely visible) and at the bottom are probably IJN Amagi and IJN Katsuragi. The submarine is underway in the upper left. Photographed by an Air Group 17 plane from USS Hornet (CV-12). Kaiyo, a 16,748-ton escort aircraft carrier, was built at Nagasaki, Japan, as a civilian passenger liner. Completed in 1939, she was taken over for use as a transport in 1941, serving under her original name, Argentina Maru. In December 1942, she began conversion to an aircraft carrier, and was renamed Kaiyo. Conversion was completed in November 1943, and the ship served during the rest of the Pacific War as an escort carrier, aircraft transport and training carrier. She was seriously damaged by British Royal Navy planes in Beppu Bay, Kyushu, on July 24, 1945. Kaiyo was stricken from the Japanese naval register in November 1945 and was scrapped at Beppu Bay in 1946-48.