Awata Maru
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
The Awata Maru ( Japanese 粟 田 丸 ) was a passenger ship of the Nippon Yūsen KK , which was used by the Imperial Japanese Navy as an armed auxiliary cruiser and military transporter during World War II .
Construction and data
The ship was built as the third and last unit of the Akagi Maru class in 1937 at Mitsubishi in Nagasaki . After keel laying on March 2, 1937, already on August 5, 1937, the launching of the commissioning and before year end, on 23 December 1937. The Japanese shipping company Nippon Yūsen KK in Tokyo then operated the ship on Pacific routes.
The size was 7,389 GRT , the length in the waterline 138.10 m, between the perpendiculars 141.03 m and over all 145.8 m. The width is given as 18.98 m. Driven by a Mitsubishi Sulzer 8-cylinder 2-stroke diesel engine with 8,000 PSe on one screw, a top speed of 19 knots was achieved. The normal draft was 8.40 m, when loaded it was 10.50 m. The water displacement with a full load can thus be calculated at around 15,000 ts . The value of 7,400 ts, which is sometimes given in the literature, is obviously too small and a misinterpretation of the size given in gross register tons. Test drive results of the Awata Maru are not known; the sister ship Asaka Maru reached a maximum of 19.2 knots with 9,365 hp.
Reconstruction and war effort
In August 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy commandeered the ship for use in the upcoming Pacific War and converted it - like the sister ships - into an auxiliary cruiser. In contrast to the type ship Akagi Maru , which received four 15.2 cm marine target guns , one 7.62 cm Type 3 gun and two 7.7 mm Type 92 machine guns for anti-aircraft defense , the more common ones on the Awata Maru 14 cm Type 3 anti-ship guns (four pieces, one each on raised platforms at the bow and stern and one on each side in front of the bridge) and two 13.2 mm Type 93 machine guns installed. In addition - unusual for an auxiliary cruiser - there were two rotatable single torpedo tubes caliber 53.3 cm on the aft deck, one on each side of the ship. Plans to install more light anti-aircraft guns were not carried out at least until 1942, as photos show.
In 1942, the ship was given a two-tone camouflage with dark, angular surfaces to dissolve the contours and dark bow and stern sections to apparently shorten the length. It is unclear whether Type 21 radar was installed on the bridge, as on the sister ship Asaka Maru in 1943.
On October 1, 1943, the Awata Maru was reclassified as a military transporter and used for this purpose after a hitherto completely unspectacular war mission (mainly in the North Pacific) due to the great lack of cargo ships. During its first voyage in its new function, the ship was sunk with torpedoes on October 22, 1943 in the East China Sea by the American submarine USS Grayback at position 26 ° 30 ' N , 125 ° 5' E. Including the embarked troops, there were 1,310 men on board, of which about 1,000 men were rescued by escort destroyers.
literature
- Jentschura / Jung / Mickel, The Japanese Warships 1869-1945 , JF Lehmanns, Munich 1970, ISBN 3-469-00290-8 , p. 398/399
- Anthony Watts, Japanese Warships of World War II , Ian Allan, London 1966, p. 318
- Maruzen, The Imperial Japanese Navy Vol. 14, Auxiliary Vessels Vol. 2, Tokyo 1990, pp. 142/143
- Editor Model Art, Drawings of Imperial Japanese Naval Vessels Vol. 2, Tokyo 1991, p. 70
- Kizu Tohru, Ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy , Tokyo 1995, p. 347