Agano (ship)
 Light cruiser Agano (October 1942)
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The Agano was a light cruiser of the Imperial Japanese Navy , which was used in the Pacific theater of war during World War II and was sunk in 1944. The ship belonged to the Agano class consisting of a total of four units and was at the same time the type ship of this class. The cruiser was named after the Agano River, which flows through the Japanese prefectures of Niigata and Fukushima . The Agano was laid down as the first ship of its class on June 18, 1940 at the naval shipyard in Sasebo ( Sasebo Kaigun Kōshō ) and was launched on October 22, 1941. The commissioning took place on October 31, 1942. The first in command of the ship was Kaigun-Taisa Kō Nakagawa.
Special features and modifications
The Agano was taken into service in October 1942 with 16 2.5 cm Flak Type 96 , until the beginning of 1944 this armament was gradually increased to 32 tubes (in eight triplet and four double mounts). From the time it was commissioned, the Agano had a Type 93 sonar . From June 1943, there was also a type 2 21 Go radar for airspace observation on board for the flak .
Second World War
1942/1943: Guadalcanal
After commissioning and the completion of the test drives, the Agano was relocated to the Truk Atoll in December 1942, as the flagship of the 4th Destroyer Flotilla ( Rear Admiral Tanaka Raizō ), and from there took part in supply trips to Wewak and Madang in mid-December . In January and February 1943, the cruiser took part in the evacuation of the remaining Japanese troops on Guadalcanal (the operation was finally completed on February 9, 1943, with about 12,000 Japanese soldiers being evacuated).
Summer and autumn 1943: the Aleutian Islands and the naval battle of the Empress Augusta Bay
In May 1943 the Agano was involved in the planning for a Japanese counter-offensive in the Aleutian region . The planned advance, worked out in the context of the American landing on Attu on May 11, 1943 ( Operation Landcrab ), was finally rejected on May 29, after the Americans had previously conquered the island and the Japanese resistance had collapsed. After a stay in the shipyard in Kure and a two-week maneuver in the Japanese inland sea , the Agano moved back to Truk in July 1943. From there followed, meanwhile as the flagship of the 10th destroyer flotilla, several troop transport missions to Rabaul until October 1943 .
After the American landing near Cape Torokina on Bougainville ( Operation Shoestring II ), the Agano belonged to a naval association ( Vice Admiral Sentarō Ōmori ), consisting of the heavy cruisers Myōkō and Haguro , the light cruiser Sendai and ten destroyers , which was launched on the night of 2 ./3. November 1943 was supposed to attack the US landing head in Kaiserin Augusta Bay . However, the advance of the Japanese unit was repulsed in the subsequent naval battle near the Empress Augusta Bay by a US combat group ( Task Force 39 ) consisting of four cruisers and eight destroyers . The Agano suffered no damage in the battle and then moved back to Rabaul.
Multiple damages in autumn 1943
In Rabaul , the Agano was damaged several times in American air raids from November 5, 1943. The cruiser was first slightly damaged on November 5 in an attack by machines from the aircraft carriers Saratoga and Princeton by a 227-kilogram close-up bomb, killing one crew member. On November 11, the cruiser received an air torpedo hit from a Grumman TBF torpedo bomber in the aft ship during a new US air raid on Rabaul , with a screw shaft being bent and four compartments full of water. After a makeshift repair, the ship was on November 12th, secured by the light cruiser Noshiro and four destroyers, marched in the direction of Truk, where the final repairs should have taken place.
However, just a few hours after sailing near New Hanover , the Agano was attacked by the American submarine Scamp with a compartment consisting of four torpedoes and hit again by a torpedo in the stern, whereby a second propeller shaft was bent. The heavily damaged ship did not sink, but had to be towed by the Noshiro due to the complete breakdown of the machinery . On the same day, the four destroyers escorted another attack by the US submarine Albacore , which had to endure a four-hour depth charge chase. Finally on November 16, after the light cruiser Nagara had taken over the damaged vessel from the Noshiro on November 14, the tug reached Truk with difficulty.
1943/44: Emergency repairs in Truk
From November 1943 to mid-February 1944 the Agano was in Truk and underwent several makeshift repairs, during this time a new commander came on board with Kaigun-Taisa Takatomo Matsuda. But since the damage was too extensive, including two propeller shafts were by the torpedo hit bent, and 19 bulkheads been torn to be repaired in Truk to the left Agano on 15 February 1944 with only two fully operational waves, the Atoll and set course for Japan, where the final repairs should have taken place. The safety of the cruiser, which could only run a maximum of about 16 knots , was taken over by the destroyer Oite and the submarine hunter Ch-28 .
Sinking the agano
On the afternoon of February 16, 1944, at 4:42 p.m., the American submarine Skate sighted the three ships about 170 nautical miles north-northwest of Truk and attacked the formation at 4:44 p.m. with a fan of four torpedoes. At 4.45 p.m. two torpedoes hit the Agano on the starboard side and destroyed boiler rooms 3 and 5. The cruiser, which was only makeshiftly repaired, caught fire and gradually began to sink, but remained afloat for around twelve hours. In the early morning hours of February 17, 1944, around 5.17 a.m., the Agano finally sank . Of 726 crew members, around 200 were killed by the two torpedo hits. The securing destroyer Oite was able to take a total of 523 survivors on board between 8:00 p.m. and 4:30 a.m. After the sinking and with the survivors on board, the destroyer began the march back towards Truk .
In the afternoon of February 17, the Oite was caught in a major US attack on the Truk Atoll ( Operation Hailstone ) and was hit by an air torpedo in front of the northern entrance to the atoll . The destroyer broke apart and sank within minutes. 172 crew members and all 523 castaways rescued by the Agano went down with the ship . Only about 20 seafarers of the destroyer's crew were later able to reach the shore of the atoll. As a result, none of the 726 crew members of the Agano survived. Kaigun-Taisa Matsuda was later posthumously promoted to Rear Admiral.
The Agano was removed from the ship register on March 31, 1944.
literature
- Eric Lacroix, Linton Wells: Japanese Cruisers of the Pacific War. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 1997, ISBN 0-87021-311-3 .
- Mike J. Whitley: Cruiser in World War II. Classes, types, construction dates. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-613-01842-X , pp. 214-216.