Japanese battleship Ise
Despite the expensive reconstruction, the ship was considered obsolete by the eve of the Pacific War, and did not see significant action in the early years of the war. Following the loss of most of the IJN's large aircraft carriers during the Battle of Midway in mid-1942, she was rebuilt with a flight deck replacing the rear pair of gun turrets to give her the ability to operate an air group of floatplanes; lack of aircraft and qualified pilots meant that "Ise" never actually operated her aircraft in combat. She participated in the Battle of Cape Engaño in late 1944, where she decoyed the American carrier fleet supporting the invasion of Leyte away from the landing beaches. Afterwards the ship was transferred to Southeast Asia; in early 1945 "Ise" participated in Operation Kita, where she transported petrol and other strategic materials to Japan. The ship was then reduced to reserve until she was sunk during American airstrikes in July. After the war "Ise" was scrapped in 1946–1947.
Ise (river)
The old district of Isenhagen, now part of Gifhorn district, was partly named after the river and its local newspaper is the "Isenhagener Kreisblatt". In the vicinity, not far from the river, is the old Isenhagen Abbey. It was used as a monastery until the Protestant Reformation and has since become a Protestant convent.
In 1571 the Celle Duke, William the Younger, submitted a plan to float logs down the Ise, an activity known as timber rafting ("Flößerei"). Its purpose was to convey logs from the royal forests to the ducal "Residenz" town of Celle, where it was needed as fuel for heating Celle Castle and other royal buildings. On the Ise north of Gifhorn were several royal forests that could have been logged. For some reason the project was not carried out. In 1617 the rafting of logs to Celle was again proposed by the officials of Knesebeck and Gifhorn to the Duke of Celle, by this time Christian the Elder. Estimates at the time put the cost of transporting logs by horse and cart at about 10 times that of rafting them down the river. These plans foundered on the rocks of the Thirty Years War which started in 1618. As a result, timber rafting down the Ise was not introduced until the reign of Duke Christian Louis. For this he called for a senior forester from Harzburg and a mine surveyor from Clausthal to advise him. In the Harz mountains they had a lot of experience with timber rafting because logs were needed for the ironworks there. Based on the recommendations of the advisors, in 1659 the river was cleared of rubbish, bushes and mud by several hundred farmers conscripted for the purpose. Extensive earthworks were created in order to get rid of the many meanders and shorten the course of the river. The canal cuts in the Ise valley left artificial ox-bows. Wooden sluices with sluice channels were built at Wahrenholz and Gifhorn. The first test run was carried out in 1659 and timber rafting officially began on the Ise in 1661 when 4,400 stères of wood fuel was transported to Gifhorn and from there down the Aller to Celle.