This vessel, which was to become the most famous Japanese aircraft
carrier and the symbol of the might of the Imperial Japanese Navy
aviation, was initially built as a battlecruiser. Only as the result of
the resolutions of the Washington Naval Treaty the Akagi ("Red Castle",
the name of a Japanese mountain) was completed as an aircraft carrier.
During the first six months of the war in the Pacific she was the
flagship of the carrier strike group, marching from one victory to
another. The reversal took place during the battle of Midway, when a hit
by a single bomb in a fatal moment sealed her fate.