Shinano (信濃), was an aircraft carrier built by the Imperial Japanese
Navy (IJN) during World War II, the largest such built up to that
time. Laid down in May 1940 as the third of the Yamato-class battleships, Shinano's partially complete hull was ordered to be converted to a carrier following Japan's disastrous loss of four fleet carriers at the Battle of Midway in
mid-1942. Her conversion was still not finished in November 1944 when she was ordered to sail from the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal to Kure Naval
Base to complete fitting out and transfer a
load of 50 Yokosuka MXY7 Ohka rocket-propelled
kamikaze flying bombs. Hastily dispatched, she had an inexperienced crew and serious design and construction flaws, lacked adequate pumps and fire-control systems, and did not even carry a
single carrier aircraft. She was sunk en route, 10 days after commissioning, on 29 November 1944, by four torpedoes from the U.S.
Navy submarine Archerfish. Over a thousand sailors and civilians were rescued and 1,435 were lost, including her captain. She remains the largest warship ever sunk by a submarine.
