Sōryū

Sōryū was the first fast fleet carrier built from the keel up for the Imperial Japanese Navy: under 20,000 tons yet capable of more than 34 knots and over 70 aircraft, with a veteran air group drawn from the Pearl Harbor strike. She supported the attack on Pearl Harbor, the conquest of Wake Island, and the raids across the Indian Ocean. At Midway on 4 June 1942 she was recovering her first strike when dive bombers from USS Yorktown fell on her; three bombs wrecked her flight deck and hangars within minutes, and fires reached her fuel and magazine spaces. Sōryū sank that evening. Her captain, Yanagimoto Ryūzō, reportedly stayed aboard with the ship, and only a few dozen of her crew of more than a thousand were rescued. Her quick destruction showed how little it took to disable a carrier whose power lived entirely on her deck. Within ten minutes of the first bomb hit her machinery was stopped and her anti-aircraft guns silent, leaving only her escorts to fight off the follow-up waves.