Ships
- IJN Hosho Captain from 18 December 1943 · Relieved on 1 March 1944
Yoshi Matsuura was a captain in the Imperial Japanese Navy and a graduate of the Naval Academy’s 49th class. On 18 December 1943 he assumed command of the aircraft carrier Hosho, relieving Takeo Kaizuka. He remained in the ship until 1 March 1944, when Kiyoshi Koda relieved him.
Hosho was the first carrier the Imperial Navy completed from a purpose-built hull, finished late in 1922. In June 1942 she had steamed with the battleships of the Main Body during the Midway operation, carrying a small group of obsolete torpedo biplanes, and afterward she was given over to training. A lengthened flight deck, newer arresting gear, and a crash barrier allowed student pilots to practice deck landings, and the extra topweight left her tender when the weather turned rough. Under Matsuura she worked the Inland Sea, dividing her days between Kure and the western part of that water, with the destroyer Yukaze as guardship. The flying was deck-landing drill and related training for carrier aircrew.
On 1 January 1944 Hosho joined the Training Force’s 5th Force, administered by the 51st Air Flotilla of the 12th Air Fleet, and kept the same operating area. In February 1944 she returned to the direct control of the Combined Fleet and was assigned to train pilots for the carriers of the Third Fleet. That qualifying work filled the last weeks of Matsuura’s command.
The carrier already had a long line of captains. In her first dozen years the command passed through Jiro Toshima, Heizaburo Fukuyo, Ryutaro Kaizu, Seizaburo Kobayashi, Giichiro Kawamura, Kiyoshi Kitagawa, Goro Hara, Hideho Wada, Eijiro Kondo, Rokuro Horie, Teizo Mitsunami, and Rokukichi Takeda, the years when the Navy was learning how to fly from a deck. Matsuura came to her two decades later, when the same small ship was qualifying pilots for a fleet short of trained airmen. After his relief, Hosho continued that training round in home waters. In the summer of 1944 her 14-centimeter guns were landed and the flight deck was extended again. On 19 March 1945 American carrier aircraft bombed her at Kure and six of her crew were killed. She survived the war, carried repatriates home, and was broken up in 1947.