Seaplane Tenders?

Which I really don't know much about, except for a few Japanese seaplane tenders. Any information is welcome.

 

http://www.combinedfleet.com/cvlist.htm
those are the Japanese carriers, there's a small topic about the seaplane tenders. It's their TROM (Tabular Record Of Movement =Where they were, what they did, who commanded them, etc.)

The French had the Commandant Teste and thats as far as my knowledge goes. I don't recal any other navy having seaplane tenders.

 

Hi.

There is a nice website about naval history which includes among other things a list of all aircraft carriers and seaplane vessels of WW2:

http://www.hazegray.org/navhist/

Yours

tom!

 

This is very good! Thanks to both of you!

 

I'm a big fan of the Barnegat class. They were extremely versatile ships, and kind of sporty-looking.

 

That statement caused me to do a double take; sporty and seaplane tender, are not words you expect to see in the same sentence.

 

Hi.

My favourite were and will be the large japanese Chitose-class Seaplane carrier:



and last but not least their successor, the Nisshin type seaplane carrier:



Yours

tom!

 

Hee! Note, I did say "kind of."
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/imag ... n26612.jpg
From the foremast forward, she could almost be a destroyer. In fact, the Barnegats were designed with the idea of replacing old converted flushdeck DD serving as tenders.

 

Interesting design. Judging by her name, I presume that this is a French ship?

 

When I was a kid, I'd visit my aunt every summer at her home on Barnegat Bay. New Jersey. That's almost like France.
It looks like the USN used bays and islands for these ships.
http://www.hazegray.org/danfs/auxil/
If you look at the AVPs under Barnegat, you'll see various bay names (with some converted destroyers mixed in there). The "other" naval aviation auxiliaries entering service at the time--the escort carriers--also used a lot of bay names.

 

you can see why sp tenders became obsolete ...the sea must be flat as a mill pond to launch or recover the planes ...see pic above...carriers a a lot more costly but do not much care about the size of the seas on any given day...

 

Italy's Giuseppe Miraglia is an example of a seaplane tender that was intended to operate with the fleet. (Under Mussolini, the RM couldn't get the money for a real aircraft carrier.) But the Americans and Japanese had in mind the practice of taking residence in a sheltered spot (like a bay? Hm...) and operating from there.

 

Indeed. And it was the American seaplane tender BALLARD which anchored in French Frigate Shoals during the Midway campaign, causing the IJN to scrub its Operation K, where two long range flying boats would rendezvous with a submarine, refuel, and then overfly Pearl Harbor to ascertain whether or not the US Pacific Fleet carriers were actually still in port, as the Japanese believed. Denied first hand knowledge, the Japanese assumed that the carriers were there (they weren't, of course) and the rest is history.

 

Operation K is an especially interesting topic, seemingly minor, but becoming hugely important.
The first expression of Operation K took place in March 1942. It was the second bombing of Pearl Harbor...sort of. A pair of Emily flying boats flew to Oahu and successfully dropped bombs. In this case, success means the bombs fell to earth and apparently exploded. However, they fell nowhere near any target, and it was some time before the Americans realized they'd been attacked. They were able to piece together sufficient details of what had happened, and that is what prompted them to send the small force to French Frigate Shoals and prevent its further use as a staging area.
For the sake of dropping a few bombs in the middle of nowhere, the Japanese inadvertently spoiled their chance to scout the situation at Pearl on the eve of Midway.
Is that ironic or not?
Alton Horn wrote his dissertation on this subject, and he subsequently got it published. Haven't read it, but it looks interesting.

 

i wonder why the ijn did not fly more emily sorties and actually hit downtown honolulu ..would this have not caused a much more defensive posture on the part of the us navy ..pehaps preventing the loss of henderson field and the solomons ? did the emilys refule at ff shoals , an open ocean meet up with a sub seems very chancey at best , surface conditions would have to be perect to pull this off...

 

They probably would do it once. After that the Americans would just place some more radars and planes at Pearl to intercept the next attacks.

 

Because the Americans seized control of their refueling point.

 

There is that. Even an Emily couldn't survive getting jumped by a horde of P-40s, not to mention whatever planes the Navy threw in, too.

 

I do wonder what the use for seaplane tenders is? I mean, why build a ship with limited planes capabilities while you can build a small carrier that's easier to handle and has a flight deck?
even the Japs changed the Chiyoda into a small carrier.

 

A seaplane tender is not comparable to an aircraft carrier. It is more like a portable airfield. It is cheap and can set up a base in an isolated area with minimal support from other ships. Originally seaplanes were considered an important attack asset, though this was disproved during the 1930's and the reconnaissance function became primary.