HΕshΕ, the First Aircraft Carrier, and HMS Queen Elizabeth - and Cocaine
The HΕshΕ, commissioned in 1922 was the world's first purpose-built aircraft carrier and a highly modernist creation. A century later the vessel's influence is still potent.
1922: The Birth of Now - Ten programmes in which Matthew Sweet investigates objects and events from 1922, the crucial year for modernism, that have an impact today.
8. The HΕshΕ Aircraft carrier
Japanβs HΕshΕ was the first purpose built aircraft carrier, launched in December 1922, combining land (well, something solid), sea and sky, and drawing on the Modernist fascination with speed and technology - think of the Italian Vorticists - for the purposes of war. Britain has invested in its largest warship ever, aircraft carriers HMS Queen Elizabeth , recently returned from making the UKβs presence felt around the world, and HMS Prince of Wales. Matthew speaks to engineer naval architect Professor David Andrews and Japanese historian Dr Satona Suzuki about them, and considers the symbolic significance of the aircraft carrier.
With Modernism's obsession with speed it's no wonder that it was partly fuelled by cocaine, much of it, surprisingly, produced by Japan. Matthew looks into this, the fear of the use cocaine, and the consequent anti-orientalism that grew in 1922.
Producer: Julian May
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- Wed 2 Feb 2022 13:45ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4
- Sun 8 May 2022 14:45ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4