Japan's Wakamiya and the Tsingtao air strikes

Wakamiya was a converted former British freighter rather than a purpose-built carrier. During the siege of Tsingtao she supported Japanese air attacks with seaplane versions of the Farman MF.11. That operation made Japan an early user of carrier-supported naval air strikes even though its aircraft inventory remained small. A naval aeronautical research commission had investigated aviation before acquiring machines and developing into the Imperial Japanese Naval Air Service. That earlier investigation complicates the idea that Japan adopted naval aviation only by copying a Western example. The episode shows a navy using foreign equipment inside its own search for an operational advantage.