Midway: Sources Used
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Brown, David. Aircraft Carriers. New York: Arco Publishing, 1977.

Campbell, John. Naval Weapons of World War Two. London: Conway Maritime Press Ltd., 1985.

Chesneau, Roger. Aircraft Carriers of the World, 1914 to the Present: An Illustrated Encyclopedia. London: Arms and Armour Press, 1984.

Drawings of Imperial Japanese Naval Vessels—Aircraft Carrier, Seaplane Carrier, Submarine. Model Art, Volume #3. Japan.

Gakken Pacific War Series, Vol. #13 (Shôkaku and Zuikaku) and Vol. #14 (Akagi, Kaga, and Hiryu). Japan.

Jentschura, Hansgeorg; Dieter Jung; and Peter Mickel. Warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1869-1945. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1977.

Maru Special, Issue #1 (Akagi and Kaga). Japan.

Nihon no Kokubokan (Japanese Aircraft Carriers). Hasegawa / Gran Prix Shuppan.

Random Details of Japanese Warships, Volumes I and II. Tamiya Model Co.

Ships of the World. Japan.

Skwiot, M., A. Jarski. Akagi. Gdansk: A.J. Press, 1994.

Watts, Anthony, Gordon Watts. The Imperial Japanese Navy. New York: Doubleday and Co., 1971.

Yuki, Takeshi. Watercolor Paintings of Imperial Japanese Navy Ships. Tokyo: Kaijinsha Co. Ltd, 1990.

Comments on Sources

In general, Jentschura and the Hasegawa carrier book were the most useful sources from a direct visual standpoint, although the A.J. Press book on Akagi is clearly the best set of plans available on any of the three ships in question. It contains a very detailed 1:400 foldout plan and side elevations of the ship after her 1938 reconstruction which provided a wealth of detailed identification information. David Brown’s book is light on actual drawings but contains extremely useful technical tidbits concerning hanger decks heights, loading characteristics and so on. Roger Chesneau’s book is also useful in this respect, but the drawings are uniformly crude and poorly executed.

David Dickson supplied additional published and unpublished carrier plans from various sources. These have been forwarded to Nauticos, and include internal plans of both Kaga and Akagi. The Kaga plans are crude, but do show general internal arrangements, which may prove useful at a later point in time.

1:700 plastic models of both Kaga and Akagi were used to fill in certain conceptual details, particularly in the aft AA gallery areas. The 1:700 kit of Sôryû from the Aoshima Model Co. was deliberately not used, as Aoshima is well known in the plastic modeling community for producing under-detailed and indeed downright inaccurate models. The Tamiya Model Co. Random Details of Japanese Warships supplied many interesting and useful visual details on weapons, fire-control systems, and hull structure.

John Campbell’s Naval Weapons of World War Two is the standard English-language text on naval weapons of all kinds, and also includes useful details on fire-control systems, ammunition, radar, and related details.

Since the time of the December Analysis, the authors have also begun to use two books in the Gakken Pacific War series. These volumes not only contain useful photographic material and line drawings, but also include color photographs of large-scale (1:100 and 1:200) models of Japanese carriers. The models contained a wealth of useful details which help develop spatial context around the wreckage photographs.

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