JS Kaga

JS Kaga (DDH-184) is an aircraft-carrying multi-role cruiser of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF), which was previously classified as a multi-purpose operation destroyer. She is currently undergoing conversion, which is scheduled to be complete around fiscal year 2027. She is the second ship in the Izumo class, the other being JS Izumo. Her namesake arises from Kaga Province (加賀国, Kaga no kuni) in present-day Ishikawa Prefecture. The modern-day Kaga shares its name with a WWII-era aircraft carrier when transcribed into English, but unlike her WWII-era predecessor, whose name was written in kanji (加賀), the new Kaga is written in hiragana (かが). She is also slightly longer than her World War II predecessor. Kaga and Izumo are the first aircraft carriers built by Japan since the end of World War II. Kaga was built as part of a wider Japanese military buildup, triggered by heightened Sino-Japanese tensions regarding the contested ownership of the Senkaku Islands. As of 2024, the first stage to convert Kaga into a fixed-wing carrier capable of operating VTOL aircraft such as the F-35B has been completed.