The Japanese fleet carrier Zuikaku, second of the two Shōkaku-class vessels, was the youngest of the six fleet carriers of the Kidō Butai—the strike force that attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, kicking off the Pacific War and bringing the United States thereby into World War II.

She was also the last of the six Kidō Butai carriers to be sunk, on October 25, 1944, in the Battle of Cape Engaño, off Luzon in the Philippines. Akagi, Kaga, Hiryū, and Sōryū had all been sunk at Midway in 1942, only a few months into the war, and Zuikaku's elder sister Shōkaku was lost four months before her, in June 1944, at the Battle of the Philippine Sea (the so-called "Great Marianas Turkey Shoot", which marked the end of Japanese naval airpower as a significant strategic factor in the war).

Takeo Kaizuka was Zuikaku's last captain; he took command in December of 1943 and was promoted to rear admiral 10 days before he went down with his ship off Cape Engaño. By then, the IJNAS had neither a pot to piss in, nor a window to throw it out of, nor many trained airmen to do either of those things, so the carriers that participated in that operation (Zuikaku, Zuihō, Chitose, and Chiyoda) were mainly just there to draw fire. This they, um... did. All were sunk.

It is a weird coincidence that if you just change one of the As to a U, Kaizuka's name becomes an anagram of Zuikaku.

Other Notes:

Cunningham's 15th Group - Admiral Andrew Browne Cunningham RN, Viscount Cunningham, Commander-in-Chief Mediterranean Fleet during World War II. His Einherjar flagship is HMS Warspite (03); he's the one who gave her the nickname "the Old Lady" during the war, in his famous cable containing the sentence THERE IS NO DOUBT WHEN THE OLD LADY LIFTS HER SKIRTS SHE CAN RUN. At the Ragnarök, Cunningham had overall charge of the naval forces in Rainbow Bay, outside Asgard Harbor itself, while Admiral Yamamoto's 16th Group and Carrier Division Two were responsible for operations within the harbor.

Zuikaku's clothes in her appearance here are from the "damaged" version of the limited-time artwork of her that appeared in Kantai Collection for a special event, a look that was billed as "Decisive Battle mode":

To give you an idea of how striking a departure that style is for her, this is what she normally looks like.

(In-game illustrations by her designer, Konishi, who also designed the Kongō class, among others.)

USS Vestal... Captain Young - USS Vestal (AR-4) was a repair ship of the United States Navy. She served in both World Wars and is particularly notable for having had the misfortune of being moored right next to the battleship USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Despite this, she was one of the few ships at Pearl that day which managed to get underway; her crew moved her away from the wreck of Arizona and then, since Vestal was herself badly damaged and taking water, beached her out of the way rather than risk her sinking in the channel.

In the aftermath of the attack, Vestal's crew repaired their own ship and participated in repairs and rescue efforts on a number of the others, most notable USS Oklahoma, which had capsized at her moorings and had to be cut open to rescue survivors trapped inside. Within a year of the attack, she was back in action, and spent the rest of the war following the line of battle from New Guinea to Okinawa, performing thousands of repair jobs on hundreds of American and Allied vessels, including major work on much more famous ships (e.g., Saratoga, Enterprise).

Her commanding officer at Pearl Harbor, Commander Cassin Young, received the Medal of Honor for his work on December 7. He was, along with a number of gunners and other crewmen, blown off the deck of his ship by the explosion that sank Arizona; legend has it the remaining crew took it upon themselves to abandon ship, only to be met by their waterlogged captain coming up the ladder they were about to go down, demanding, "Where the hell do you gentlemen think you're going?"

Young was subsequently promoted to captain and posted to command of the heavy cruiser USS San Francisco. He was still serving in that capacity on November 13, 1942, when San Francisco took a direct hit to the bridge during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, killing everybody there except the signals officer.

(By an odd coincidence, said surviving officer was Lt. Cmdr. Bruce McCandless I, father of future astronaut Bruce McCandless II. Technically they were Bruce McCandless Sr. and Jr. at that time, since Bruce McCandless III wasn't born until 1961—Bruce II was all of five years old in 1942—but anyway.)

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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