Shinano

Laid down as the third Yamato-class battleship, it was decided to complete her as a carrier after the ugly events at Midway. Given her size (72,000 tons full load - damn near the size of a 1950's -vintage U.S. Forrestal-class supercarrier) she would have carried a pretty minimal number of planes, some 45-55. Because of her prodigious bunkerage and ordnance stowage space, it was intended that she operate as both a carrier and a replenishment vessel. Ironically, she was sunk by the U.S. submarine Archerfish before she ever launched a plane, the victim of faulty damage control and her watertight compartmentation not yet being installed (which begs the question, whose bright idea was it to leave harbor for another port for final fitting out, in 1944, with nearby waters crawling with our subs, without all her watertight doors installed? Not a real swift move.)