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Akagi Air Group, QuickTime movie, 376Kb, 260x195.
| | Akagi Air Group
Known to the Japanese as Operation 'Z', the Imperial Japanese navy's December 1941 attack on the US Pacific Fleet in its main base at Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands is entrusted to the Pearl Harbor Strike Force, otherwise the 1st Koku Kantai (1st Air Fleet) under the command of Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo.
The main strike element of this powerful fleet is a mix of Aichi D3A dive-bombers and Nakajima B5N torpedo-bombers carried by the six fleet carriers, which also embark a significant number of Mitsubishi A6M fighters for the protection of the strike aircraft and also of the Japanese carriers should these be discovered by the Americans and taken under air attack.
The six carriers are organized in three Koku Sentais (carrier divisions), two of them comprising pairs of sister carriers. The 1st Koku Sentai differs in being based on different ships, namely the Akagi (flying Nagumo's flag) that was completed in 1927 from the incomplete battle-cruiser of the same name, and the Kaga that was completed in 1928 from the incomplete battleship of the same name after the Akagi's planned sistership, Amagi, was wrecked in an earthquake.
For Operation 'Z', the air group is at full strength and comprises 72 operational aircraft. These are 18 D3A1 dive-bombers and 27 B5N2 high-level and torpedo- bombers, of which 12 are armed with torpedoes and the other 15 with 14in (356 mm) naval shells adapted as armor-piercing bombs (a strike package of 45 aircraft) and 27 examples of the A6M2 fighter, of which only 18 are committed offensively for the escort of the carrier's strike package with the other nine retained for defensive air patrols. | |  |
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