Airborne Ocean Surveillance

The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) recognised the utility of aircraft for naval reconnaissance during the First World War, using seaplanes for search missions and, in the 1930s, emphasised the importance of aerial scouting in connection with its emerging doctrine of a first strike against enemy carriers.¹ Naval aviation was revived in the 1950s under US direction and, in the late 1950s, the United States agreed to the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force’s (JMSDF) acquisition of Lockheed P2V-R Neptune anti-submarine warfare (ASW)/ocean patrol aircraft. Kawasaki assembled 48 P2V-Rs at its Gifu plant from 1959 through the early 1960s.² In 1963, Kawasaki initiated