Japanese 1 Air Fleet

1 Air Fleet was organized on 10 April 1941 at the instigation of Combined Fleet commander Yamamoto Isoroku. The brilliant air officer of Carrier Division 1, Genda Minoru, had advocated such a move for five years, but Yamamoto hisitated at first because of the profound change it implied in Navy doctrine. The idea was further championed by Ozawa Jisaburo, who formally submitted it to Yamamoto and the Navy General Staff in April 1940. Yamamoto was angered by the breach of protocol but finally endorsed the proposal in December 1940.

1 Air Fleet  was an important tactical innovation, concentrating Japan's first-line naval air power into a single independent force rather than assigning it to provide air cover for the battle line. It was organized a few months before the attack on Pearl Harbor and intensively trained for that mission. Some of its destroyers were assigned to missions intended to clear the return path to Japan after the attack. 1 Air Fleet was not a balanced force, however, and it always operated with heavy surface escort provided by 1 and 2 Fleets.

Curiously, neither the commander of 1 Air Fleet, Nagumo Chuichi; his chief of staff, Kusaka Ryunosuke; nor his senior staff officer, Oishi Tamotsu, were aviators. However, the air officer was Genda, upon whom Nagumo came to heavily rely.

Administrative structure, 7 December 1941:

Task forces, 7 December 1941:

References

Evans and Peattie (1997)

Morison (1948)

Prados (1995)
Prange (1981)

The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia © 2007, 2009, 2013 by Kent G. Budge. Index

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