High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Operation Kita ("North") was conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during the Pacific War in February 1945. Its purpose was to return both Ise-class hybrid battleship-aircraft carriers and their escorts to Japan from Singapore, where they had been based since November the previous year. The movement of the Japanese force was detected by the Allies, but all attempts to attack it with submarines and aircraft failed. Nevertheless, due to the intensifying Allied blockade of Japan, the Ise-class battleship-carriers and their escorts were among the last IJN warships to safely reach the country from the Southwest Pacific before the end of the war.