http://www.j-aircraft.com/research/jas_ ... rships.htm
http://spot.colorado.edu/~dziadeck/airship/japan.htm
At the end of World War One Japan was awarded the German Navy's L37 (LZ75) which was a "Super Zeppelin" of the L30 or "R" class and the first ship assembled at the Zeppelin Company's satellite facility located at Berlin-Staaken.
As the first new ship from Staaken, L37 was overdue and overweight and was the ONLY L30-class ship that was never sent to raid England. Following a brief stint in North Sea "Front" service, L37 was transferred to the Baltic (along with L30) and flew in several operations in this secondary theatre. It never received the twin-engine rear gondola modification and finished its career being laid up at Seddin-bei-Stolp in late 1917 after about one year of flying.
Japan had no real interest in the ship and had her broken up in the summer of 1920, taking posession of the gas valves, instruments, a few of the engines and some other parts that they deemed important enough to study.
The large 787 foot hangar at Juterbog, near Berlin, was dismantled and erected at the Japanese Naval Air Station at Kisamagaura, near Tokyo, where it housed the LZ127 Graf Zeppelin on her 1929 flight around the world.
For a time, Japan had a determination to develop a Naval Airship Service, one of the more notable pilots being Takijuro Onishi who was trained in England after World War One and who went on to conceive the idea and tactics for the kamakaze planes of World War II.....Japan seems to have terminated all LTA operations around 1932 (though I've seen 1942 cited). This does not include, of course, barrage balloons or the "FuGo" balloon bombs.