The smaller escorts are judged useful ships whose arrival left little time for sustained service. The chronology given here places Matsu's entry in April 1944 and Tachibana's in January 1945. Tachibana is then described as sunk off Hokkaido in July 1945. These examples support the criticism that a practical design adopted very late could provide only a limited response to an existing shortage. The argument concerns the length of useful service available as well as the number of ships completed.
Notable Point · 36:16-37:20
Late escorts had little time to influence the war
The service timetables quoted for Matsu and Tachibana illustrate how little operational time remained for the late escort designs.