Chitose (ship, 1898)
 The chitose
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The Chitose ( Japanese 千 歳 ) was a 2nd class armored cruiser of the Imperial Japanese Navy .
Construction and technical data
She and the Kasagi , which were laid down three months earlier and launched two days earlier , are commonly referred to as sister ships, mostly of the Kasagi class and occasionally also of the Chitose class. The two ships, almost simultaneously but built by two different American shipyards , were very similar as their design was based on that of the British- built Takasago . However, they also differed in many aspects of their interior, as the shipyards had been given a lot of freedom for their own further developments. So had z. B. the Chitose 130 watertight compartments separated by bulkheads and bulkhead decks, the Kasagi 142.
The two ships were ordered as part of the fleet expansion program of 1896. Its construction costs were met from the reparation payments that the Chinese Empire had to pay to Japan after the First Sino-Japanese War on the basis of the Shimonoseki Treaty of 1895.
The Chitose was designed and built by the Union Iron Works shipyard in San Francisco . She was the second large Japanese warship ordered in the US and the last to be built abroad. The ship was laid down on May 16, 1897, launched on January 22, 1898, completed on March 1, 1899, steamed to Japan on March 21, and arrived at Yokosuka naval base on April 30, 1899 .
With a length of 115.2 m, width of 14.9 m and a draft of 5.3 m , the cruiser displaced 4865 ts . The machine system consisted of twelve boilers and two triple expansion steam engines with a total output of 11600 kW, which enabled a top speed of 22.25 knots with two screws . The range was, with a bunker supply of 1000 tons of coal, 4000 nautical miles at 10 nm cruising speed. The armament consisted of two Japanese 20.3-cm / 45 Type 41 naval cannons behind protective shields (one in front, one aft), 10 British 120 mm rapid fire guns Mk I-IV in casemates , 12 British 76 mm rapid fire guns also in casemates, six 47 mm Hotchkiss rapid-fire guns and four 35.6 cm torpedo tubes . The deck armor was 62 mm, 112 mm on the slopes. The gun shields of the two heavy guns were 203 mm thick at the front and 62 mm at the sides, and the command post had 115 mm of armor protection. The crew numbered 434 men.
Mission history
Boxer Rebellion
In the so-called Boxer Rebellion in China in 1900, the Chitose belonged to the Japanese squadron under Vice Admiral Tōgō , which cruised off the north Chinese coast from July.
Russo-Japanese War
In the Russo-Japanese War 1904–05, the Chitose took part in the sea battle off Port Arthur , the Japanese attack on Port Arthur , on February 9, 1904, as the flagship of Rear Admiral Dewa Shigeto , who with his four armored cruisers of the 3rd Division United Fleet launched the first morning attack on the port on February 9th. During the Battle of the Yellow Sea on August 10, 1904, the Chitose was involved in the unsuccessful pursuit of the fleeing Russian cruisers Askold and Novik . When the Nowik on August 20, while trying from Qingdao to Vladivostok to escape from coal recording before Korsakov from the artillery superior Japanese cruiser Tsushima surprised and asked for the fight was even came Chitose added, so that the crew of the Nowik no looked possibility of escape more and their ship scuttled .
In the naval battle of Tsushima in May 1905, the Chitose was one of the four cruisers of the 3rd Division of the First Squadron that dueled with the Russian cruisers Oleg , Aurora and Shemchug . When the division flagship Kasagi was damaged, Vice Admiral Dewa switched to the Chitose . The day after the battle, May 28, the Chitose sank a Russian destroyer and then pursued, albeit unsuccessfully, the fleeing cruiser Isumrud .
The Chitose was then used to secure Japanese troop transports and landings in North Korea . At the end of July 1905 the cruiser went to the naval arsenal in Maizuru for overhaul .
Interwar years
From February 28 to November 16, 1907, the Chitose undertook a trip around the world with the new armored cruiser Tsukuba , with the commander of the 2nd Fleet, Admiral Ijuin Gorō , on board to display the Japanese flag. The two ships ran via Singapore , Colombo , Aden , Port Said and Gibraltar to Norfolk, Virginia (USA), where they represented Japan at the Jamestown Exposition , the 300th anniversary of the foundation of the Jamestown Colony . After a visit to New York , which they left again on May 19, the two ships crossed the Atlantic again and visited u. a. Portsmouth (June 12th - 15th) and then the 25th Kiel Week (June 22nd - 29th). They then visited ports in the Netherlands and Belgium , then Brest and Bordeaux in France , San Sebastián in Spain and Lisbon in Portugal , where King Carlosl came to visit on board the Tsukuba . In the Mediterranean , calls were made in Naples (August 23) and Trieste , and then back to Japan with visits to Port-Said, Suez , Aden, Colombo, Batavia , Singapore and Manila . After nine months and a total of 32,400 nautical miles, the two ships reached Yokosuka again on November 16, 1907 .
In 1910 the Chitose was completely overhauled, with its previous locomotive steam boilers being replaced by so-called Miyabara water tube boilers .
First World War
During the First World War , the Chitose served with the 2nd fleet. In autumn 1914 she was involved in the conquest of the German leasehold area Kiautschou .
When the armored cruiser Asama ran onto an underwater rock on January 31, 1915 when entering Puerto San Bartolomé in Tortuga Bay ( Baja California Sur ) and was severely damaged, the Chitose was one of the ships sent there to support the recovery. After 98 days, the Asama finally floated up again, and after a short test run on August 21, she left the bay of Puerto San Bartolome on August 23, accompanied by the Chitose and the workshop ship Kanto , to go to the British base in Esquimalt ( British Columbia ).
After that, the Chitose mostly provided security service in the South China Sea and especially in the sea area between Singapore and Borneo .
The End
On September 1, 1921, the ship was downgraded to coastal defense ship 2nd class and partially disarmed. It was decommissioned on April 1, 1928 and finally sunk on July 19, 1931 off Tosa ( Shikoku ) as a target ship as part of a dive bomber exercise .
Remarks
- ^ Admiral Staff of the Navy (Ed.): The Imperial Navy during the Troubles in China, 1900-1901 , Volume 1, Mittler und Sohn, Berlin, 1903, p. 225
- ↑ The chief engineer of the Japanese Navy, Rear Admiral Miyabara Jiro, designed this type of water-tube boiler named after him in 1895/96. ( Walter Leps: The water tube boilers of the war and merchant navy. Volckmann, Rostock, 1904, pp. 282-289 )
Web links
- The new Cruiser for Japan , in Scientific American: Supplement No. 1211 , Volume 47, New York, 18 March 1899, pp. 19407-8
- Japanese Cruiser Chitose , in Marine Revue , Cleveland, Ohio, Vol. XIX, No. 2, January 1899, p. 27
- Online Archive of California: A guide to the Chitose, photograph album, 1897-1899
- Launch of Japanese man-of-war "Chitosa" (ie, "Chitose"), short film
- Launch of Japanese man-of-war "Chitosa" (US Library of Congress, short film)
literature
- Roger Chesneau & Eugene M. Kolesnik (eds.): Warships of the World 1860 to 1905. Volume 2: USA, Japan and Russia. Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Koblenz 1983, ISBN 3-7637-5403-2 .
- Roger Chesneau: Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, 1906-1921. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 1985, ISBN 0-87021-907-3 .
- Stephen Howarth: The Fighting Ships of the Rising Sun: The Drama of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1895-1945. Atheneum, 1983, ISBN 0-689-11402-8 .
- Hansgeorg Jentsura: Warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1869-1945. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 1976, ISBN 0-87021-893-X .
- Kaigun Hôjutsu-shi Kankôkai (Ed.): 海軍 砲 術 史 ( "Kaigun Hôjutsu-shi - History of Japanese Naval Artillery" ), Tokyo, 1975