World War II Imperial Japanese Navy (You Tube)

The clip starts out by talking about the Japanese fuel shortage that was due to the actions of American submarines sinking Japanese oil tankers. It talks about how the battleships were near the oil fields, and the carriers were near Japan.

From that point it goes on to talk about the Yamato class of battleships. It discusses the very thick armor on the ships. Then it talks about the Japanese Zero. By 1943, the clip says, the plane was outclassed by new U.S. planes. It talks about how the Zero and other planes were used on kamikaze missions.

The film notes that, by 1944, Japanese carrier pilots had been almost wiped out, and the other pilots had about a 50% loss rate. Japanese pilot schools cut the training time, and thus produced pilots who were mediocre at best. On top of that, there was a chronic shortage of aviation fuel.

The battleship group near Singapore worked on night fighting abilities.

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