Thank you, Mike. I truly appreciate that.
About the actual wooden deck, most "experts" now accept that Taiho was fitted with a wooden flight deck. It really shouldn't be a surprise, as the Japanese practice (US, too) was to lay wooden deck planking over thin metal plating. The only difference in this case is that Taiho's metal plating was armored and vastly thicker between the elevators. Plans of Taiho always showed wood planking.
Three factors erroneously influenced the idea that she did not carry a wooden flight deck:
1) wood material shortages in Japan led to the development of a latex based surfacing/anti-skid material to be used instead. While this material was clearly in use on very late war constructed CVs like Amagi and Katsuragi, it's not at all clear when it came into use. (Btw, the Unryus were also designed with wood planked decks in mind.) The use of this material aboard Taiho has largely been presumed because of the indeterminate timing of its use in 1944, also
2) according to eyewitnesses, Taiho apparently had her flight deck darkened with funnel soot and/or black paint shortly before sortieing for the Phillipine Sea, thereby eliminating the lighter appearance that wooden decks usually take on, and finally
3) Kawasaki Shipbuilding had a large display model of her built post-war that did not show a wooden deck. Since Kawasaki built Taiho, and since Shizuo Fukui was alleged it have supervised the building of the model, it was just accepted by contemporaries and model manufacturers that used that model as a reference for their own kits that Taiho did not have a wooden flight deck. However, the actual rationale for this oversight is not known; the actual model builder(s) may not have realized it or relied on the same erroneous assumptions listed as 1 & 2.
A few years ago, this photo surfaced of two officers know to have been stationed together aboard Taiho standing atop her wooden flight deck with one of her aircraft in the background (
viewtopic.php?f=60&t=171880&start=200#p885171 ) and was documented as authentic.
That's odd about your AH set. My AH set came with a wooden flight deck. I might even have an extra, but I would actually recommend the Shipyard set.
I actually have a lot of extra parts, even an extra kit. Feel free to contact me for/about anything for your build.
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As always top notch work. 1:700 doesn't get any better then this.
