page_title: Japanese seaplane carrier Wakamiya
section_title: Siege of Tsingtao
hierarchical_section_title: Japanese seaplane carrier Wakamiya / Siege of Tsingtao
caption_attribution_description: Japanese Maurice Farman seaplane.
context_page_description: Wakamiya was a seaplane carrier of the Imperial Japanese Navy and the first Japanese aircraft carrier. She was converted from a transport ship into a seaplane carrier and commissioned in August 1914. She was equipped with four Japanese-built French Maurice Farman seaplanes. In September 1914, she conducted the world's first naval-launched air raids.
context_section_description: From 5 September 1914, Wakamiya conducted the world's first naval-launched air raids during the first months of the First World War  from Kiaochow Bay off Tsingtao, which is located in China. On 6 September 1914 a Farman aircraft launched by Wakamiya attacked the Austro-Hungarian cruiser Kaiserin Elisabeth and the German gunboat Jaguar in Qiaozhou Bay; neither ship was hit. Her seaplanes bombarded German-held land targets (communication centers and command centers) in the Tsingtao peninsula of Shandong province and ships in Qiaozhou Bay from September to 6 November 1914, during the Siege of Tsingtao.
  British officers serving in the Battle of Tsingtao commented on the operations of the Wakamiya:
  Daily reconnaissances, weather permitting, were made by the Japanese seaplanes, working from the seaplane mother ship. They continued to bring valuable information throughout the siege. The mother ship was fitted with a couple of derricks for hoisting them in and out. During these reconnaissances they were constantly fired at by the German guns mostly with shrapnel, but were never hit. The Japanese airmen usually carried bombs for dropping on the enemy positions.
  — Report by Lieut. Commanders G.S.F. Nash and G. Gipps,  HMS Triumph, 18 November 1914.
  On 30 September, Wakamiya struck a German mine and had to be repaired for a week. On this occasion, her seaplanes were transferred on land at Shazikou (沙子口海岸), from where they accomplished further scouting and attack missions:
  The seaplane corps and three Henry Farman 100 h.p. seaplanes were, in consequence of the damage done to the mother ship, landed at the Base already established at Laoshan Harbour (to the West of the Bay so nearer to Tsingtao), and this proved eminently satisfactory.
  — Report by Lieut. Commanders G.S.F. Nash and G. Gipps of the HMS Triumph, 18 November 1914.
  Altogether the seaplanes made 49 attacks, dropping 190 bombs on German defenses until the German surrender on 7 November. According to the British Naval Attaché to Tokyo, Captain Hon. Hubert Brand, who had been stationed for three months on Imperial Japanese Navy warships throughout the battle, the bombs used by the seaplanes were about equivalent to 12 pdr. shells.
caption: Japanese Maurice Farman seaplane, 1914.
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