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The Hiryu was one of the main Japanese aircraft carriers in the first year of the Pacific War, taking part in the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Japanese conquests before being lost at Midway. When she entered service in 1939 she was one of the most advanced carriers in the world, and would become the basis of much wartime Japanese carrier construction. This makes her a good subject for this book.
We start with the background to development of the Hiryu, then a technical description of her. As she was one of the better documented Japanese aircraft carriers this gives us a good idea of her layout and of the aircraft handling facilities and general machinery. We then look at the main aircraft used on her – the Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero, Aichi D3A Val and Nakajima B5N Kate. The only weakness in her design when she was lost were her anti-aircraft guns – a small number of 12.7cm guns with insufficient range and a larger number of 25mm guns which lacked the stopping power to deal with the lastest US aircraft. This was a problem shared by most warships in the early years of the Second World War, before the scale of the threat from air power had been realised. We also look at the gunnery directors, ship’s boats, searchlights and other equipment.
Next comes a history of the Hiryu, presented as a timeline. This takes us from the day she was laid down in 1936 to her sinking at Midway, and traces her movements, changes of commander, training, and combat. This started with a brief deployment in Chinese waters in 1940, the occupation of French Indochina, Pearl Harbor, Wake Island, the Dutch East Indies, the Darwin raid, the Indian Ocean Raid and finally Midway. Midway gets the most detail, covering three pages. This covers all of the attacks carried out by her, including the two raids that fatally damaged Yorktown, the US raid that hit Hiryu, the attempts to save her and her eventual loss several hours later. The text chapters take up the first 40 pages of the book.
We then move onto the Primary Views section, a series of full colour 3D illustrations showing her at various key moments, complete with aircraft on deck. These are technically impressive and provide a good visual guide to her appearance. They fill about the same space as the text, leaving more than two thirds of the book for the detailed plans.
This is the heart of the book. We get hundreds of detailed plans of the ship covering just about every aspect, and ranging in scale from full length plans to details of individual gun mounts. Some are paired with 3D illustrations showing how the 2D plans would have looked in reality. The illustration showing how the boilers connected to air intakes and the funnels is especially impressive, and shows how much space these elements of the ship required. This works especially well for the deck plans, where the 3D version really brings them to life while the 2D plan provides the accurate details. There are 3D cross-sections through the ship which give a really good idea of how cramped these carriers could be.
This is an excellent piece of work, providing a very impressive in-depth examination of the Hiryu. I particularly like the combination of 2D plans and 3D illustrations of the same area, which combine very effectively to show what areas of the ship actually looked like.
Section 1 – Introduction, Technical description, History
Section 2 – Primary Views
Section 3 – The drawings
Author: Stefan Draminski
Edition: Hardcover
Pages: 336
Publisher: Osprey
Year: 2022