Saving Japan's CVs after Midway

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Trophy. Tow that burned out wreck from port to port, to show off the might of the USN
I'm thinking that if the US could build a tractor-trailer combo that could tote the Kaga or Akagi around on a War Bond Tour, the Japanese...and the Germans...would surrender immediately on seeing it.
 
I'm thinking that if the US could build a tractor-trailer combo that could tote the Kaga or Akagi around on a War Bond Tour, the Japanese...and the Germans...would surrender immediately on seeing it.
Two NASA crawlers would have that capacity.

Slow tour at 1mph though.
 
Hiryu is easy to save, after the first three are clobbered the Japanese do the smart thing and channel their inner Brave Sir Robin and bravely run away.
 
The mere issue here is how to tow away a large, heavy object for a huge distance in open ocean, with no specialized tugging vessels around. The smallest Carrier Soryu alone was around the 16,000 ton size excluding here loading and the additional shipped in water. The much larger Kaga and Akagi displaced around 40,000 tons each minimal, not counting the tons of water shipped in used to counter the fires, by the damage control. The only way of towing such heavy loads was to use something heavy as well, or at least something with a large power output capable of propelling a tow. (DD's and cruisers were powerful on their own but not suited to tow anything.) BB's were large enough, but neither very useful as a tug, besides the tactical issues of having such expensive warships crawling their way across the open ocean in hostile waters. Japan had no tugboats in its forces assigned in operation MI to start with.

So in theory, if the IJN somehow saved one, or more CV's at Midway, these would have to be capable of propelling themselves which in only one case was possible: Hiryu, as Soryu, Kaga and Akagi were all hit and damaged in such a way their propulsion was knocked out very fast, mostly due to both indirect damage and shock damage of internal explosions.. Only Hiryu seemed to have maintained some propulsive power after being hit and knocked out as a fighting unit, due to the permanent damage on her flight capabilities. The fact the ship was scuttled was mostly due to tactical reasoning, given the presence of enemy forces within striking range making a slow retreat of the stricken vessel a hazard at best.
 
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