Hiei (ship, 1912)
 The Hiei in July 1942
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The Hiei ( Japanese 比叡 ) was a warship of the Japanese Navy in the First and Second World Wars . Finished as battle cruisers of Kongō class , it later became a fast battleship rebuilt. It was named after the mountain Hiei , about 3 km northeast of Kyoto . The Hiei was badly damaged in the Pacific War in 1942 and was abandoned by the crew.
Planning, construction and renovation
The Hiei was laid down in Yokosuka on November 4, 1911 and entered active service in the Imperial Japanese Navy in 1914.
The Naval Treaty of London, which was signed in 1930, made it possible for Japan to achieve the strength ratio permitted by its navy for capital ships not by scrapping , but also by dismantling its surplus ships. The regulations required the ships to be rendered unusable to such an extent that their restoration into a functioning warship was almost impossible in a short time. The Japanese decided to disarm the Hiei as a training ship at a speed of less than 20 knots. The conversion to the training ship lasted from 1929 to 1932. In the course of the work, the belt armor and a large part of the armament were removed and the machinery was reduced in size. In the course of this work, the water displacement sank to 19,500 tons and the top speed dropped to only 18 knots.
modernization
After Japan left the League of Nations , it was finally decided to remobilize and modernize the Hiei as part of the Japanese armament plan approved in District Three in 1936 . The work continued until 1939. In addition to the dismantling to the old state, innovations were also introduced: Among other things, several platforms were added above the bridge structure on the front mast, so that the typical pagoda mast was created. In addition to a new battle bridge, compass bridge and facilities for close-range fire control , a new range finder was also installed. A torpedo bulge now protected amidships against hits below the waterline. The armor of the upper deck - a weakness of the battlecruisers that had shown itself in the First World War - was strengthened to 70 mm, in critical areas to 120 mm, so that together with the 19 mm thick ceiling of the armored citadel it protects against projectiles striking from above should. The modernization of the propulsion systems finally resulted in a top speed of 29.7 knots .
Mission history of the Hiei
After the Japanese declaration of war on the German Empire on August 23, 1914 during the First World War , the Hiei carried out several missions off the Chinese coast and in the Pacific to secure Japanese landing operations.
After the severe Kanto earthquake of 1923, the Hiei was used together with other naval units to support the civilian population. Under the command of Admiral Katō Kanji , the crews provided help in the Tokyo area , where a dinghy of the Hiei sank due to a collision with a tug and 46 people died.
Second World War
The third battleship division ( Sentai 3 ) was 1941 escort for the carrier combat group Kidō Butai of Vice Admiral Nagumo Chūichi , which carried out the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 . To secure the withdrawal, several reconnaissance planes were launched from the battleships before the Hiei returned to Japan on the 23rd of the month.
In early 1942, the Hiei took part in the Battle of the Java Sea as part of Vice Admiral Mikawa's fleet Sentai 3 . On March 1, 1942, the combat group placed the destroyer Edsall , 430 nautical miles south of Java , which transported American pilots to Tjilatjap . The Hiei , her sister ship Kirishima and some heavy cruisers opened fire at a distance of 27,000 meters, but could not hit the fast-maneuvering destroyer decisively. Only when it was damaged and slowed down by an air raid did the pursuers shoot the Edsall down until it finally went down at 17:31.
In June 1942, the Hiei was used together with the Kongō , the Zuihō and some cruisers under Vice Admiral Kondō as an escort for the fleet of transport ships that should drop troops on the island of Midway. This mission was thwarted by the Japanese defeat in the Battle of Midway .
During the Battle of the Eastern Solomon Islands in August 1942, it was the Hiei reconnaissance aircraft that discovered the American aircraft carrier group TF 16 and ultimately showed the Japanese aviation associations the way to their goals.
Loss in the Battle of Guadalcanal
On November 13, 1942, the first sea battle of Guadalcanal took place. The Hiei was part of Vice Admiral Abe Hiroaki's combat group that was supposed to bombard the US airfield Henderson Field on Guadalcanal in a night raid. When meeting a US security group, the Hiei and her escort ships fought with the American heavy cruisers Portland and San Francisco , the light cruiser Atlanta and the destroyers Cushing , O'Bannon , Laffey and Sterret .
The battle that was now developing in the dark was very confusing for the commanders involved. All parts of the fleet of Vice Admiral Abe's formation had been dimmed and walked into the target area largely without radio so as not to reveal their position. The dead reckoning that was carried out turned out to be too imprecise and none of the ships was in their intended position when enemy ships suddenly appeared. The US fleet was also caught by surprise, and an American officer later described the battle as a bar fight . At the moment the US fleet was discovered, the Hiei still had HE shells loaded into its main guns for bombing the airfield. She fired her first broadside at 5,000 yards into the Atlanta , presumably killing Rear Admiral Norman Scott and most of the officers on the cruiser's bridge.
The Hiei was now initially attacked by the destroyer Cushing with torpedoes less than 1000 meters away , none of which damaged the battleship. Next, the Laffey fired two torpedoes, both of which smashed harmlessly against the battleship before they could be armed. Now the destroyer's machine guns fired at the Hiei bridge until it hit the destroyer with 35.6 cm shells and destroyed its engine room , shortly before a Japanese torpedo sank the Laffey . Now another four torpedoes were shot down by the Sterret , but these did not damage the battleship either. At a distance of just over 1,000 meters, the O'Bannon fired its main guns and scored numerous hits in the Hiei's bridge superstructures . This destroyer also shot a torpedo, but it also failed. The Hiei devastated the superstructure of the San Francisco with its grenades , where Rear Admiral Callaghan was killed. She herself was also badly hit - more than 85 small caliber shells and a few heavy shells from cruisers hit her. An 8-inch shell had penetrated the aft hull and caused severe water ingress in the steering gear room. Due to the damage to the steering gear, the maneuverability was limited and she had to withdraw.
She had been only a few nautical miles from the battlefield in the first light of day when the rudder finally failed and the Hiei began to circle arcs north of Savo Island .
The American side, hastily gathered together, were now sent to sink the Hiei , while the Japanese side tried to protect the ship with machines from Rabaul and fighter pilots from Admiral Kondo's carrier group. The Hiei's repair crews were already making progress in draining the flooded steering gear room, while dogfights between individual Japanese Zeros and groups of American wildcats developed over the ship. Several Grumman TBFs finally hit the torpedo on the Hiei , which defended itself against the attackers with all weapons, including its heavy 35.6 cm guns. In addition to the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, even Boeing B-17 bombers of the 72nd bomber squadron took part in the attacks. According to American data, four bomb hits with 500 kg bombs and one with a 250 kg bomb as well as eleven torpedo hits were achieved on the battleship. The Japanese counted two torpedo hits, one below Tower B and one that had breached the armored citadel and flooded the starboard engine room, plus three bomb hits.
Since the ship had not been sunk, but had suffered severe water ingress, the maneuverability could not be improved sustainably and further attacks threatened, Vice Admiral Abe ordered the commander of the Hiei , Masao Nishida, to abandon the ship. The self-sinking was prepared and after recovering the emperor's portrait and lowering the war flag , the crew left the ship, which was already in the water as far as the upper deck, and was picked up by four escort destroyers. 188 Hiei seamen were killed in the night skirmish and air raids.
Kaigun-Taisa Nishida and Kaigun Chūjō Abe later had to answer for the abandonment of the ship before a court martial. Masoa Nishida never led a warship again and left the Navy in March 1943. Admiral Abe also lost his command.
wreck
The exact location of the wreck of the Hiei was unclear as the ship was drifting unclaimed near the island of Savo for some time before it sank. An expedition of the American underwater archaeologist Robert Ballard found a keel-up wreckage of a Kongo- class battleship near Savo. However, it was assigned to the sister ship of the Hiei , the Kirishima , which was sunk just two days after the Hiei in a similar operation very nearby by the US battleships South Dakota and Washington .
In the spring of 2018, Japanese researchers reported the discovery of a large wreck and a smaller object 7 nautical miles north of Guadalcanal that they believed to be the Hiei . The wreck lies at a depth of 400 meters, the sonar measurements showed a length of about 150 meters and width of almost 40 meters. The piece of debris shows a slightly higher object that is about 30 meters long and 8 meters wide. The researchers suspected that the Hiei lies with its keel on the seabed, but parts of it are covered by a layer of sediment while the bridge tower protrudes upwards.
The wreck was discovered on January 31, 2019 by the research vessel Petrel northwest of the island of Savo at a depth of 985 meters.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Donald M. Goldstein, Katherine V. Dillon: The Pacific War papers: Japanese documents of World War II. Free Press, 2005, ISBN 1-57488-632-0 , p. 300.
- ^ Norman Friedman: US battleships: an illustrated design history. Naval Institute Press, 1985, ISBN 0-87021-715-1 , pp. 186, 307.
- ↑ David C. Evans: Kaigun: strategy, tactics, and technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy 1887-1941. US Naval Institute Press, 2003, ISBN 0-87021-192-7 , pp. 295, 357.
- ^ Ian Gow: Military intervention in pre-war Japanese politics. Admiral Katō Kanji and the 'Washington System'. Routledge Curzan, ISBN 0-7007-1315-8 , p. 154
- ↑ Donald M. Goldstein, Katherine V. Dillon: Pearl Harbor papers. Inside the Japanese Plans. Brassey's US, 2000, ISBN 1-57488-222-8 , pp. 261 et seq .
- ^ Peter C. Smith: Fist from the Sky. Japan's Dive-Bomber Ace of World War II. Stackpole, ISBN 0-8117-3330-0 , pp. 186 and following.
- ↑ Vincent P. O'Hara: The US Navy against the Axis. surface combat 1941-1945. US Naval Institutes Press, 2007, ISBN 1-59114-650-X , p. 63.
- ↑ Akira Yoshimura: Zero fighter. Greenwood, ISBN 0-275-95355-6 , p. 146.
- ^ John B. Lundstrom: The first team and the Guadalcanal campaign. US Naval Institute Press, 2005, ISBN 1-59114-472-8 , p. 125.
- ^ Nathan Miller: War at Sea: A Naval History of World War II. Oxford university press, ISBN 0-19-511038-2 , p. 286.
- ↑ Tameichi Hara: Japanese Destroyer Captain. US Naval Institute Press, ISBN 1-59114-354-3 , pp. 132, 133.
- ^ Theodore Roscoe: United States destroyer operations in World War II. US Naval Institute Press, ISBN 0-87021-726-7 , p. 193 and following.
- ^ John B. Lundstrom: First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign. Naval Fighter Combat from August to November 1942. US Naval Institute Press, ISBN 978-1-59114-472-4 .
- ↑ a b Joachim Wätzig: The Japanese Fleet - From 1868 to today. Brandenburgisches Verlagshaus, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-89488-104-6 . P. 183.
- ^ Donald M. Goldstein, Katherine V. Dillon: The Pacific War papers. Japanese documents of World War II. Free Press, 2005, ISBN 1-57488-632-0 , p. 296.
- ↑ Tameichi Hara: Japanese Destroyer Captain. US Naval Institute Press, ISBN 1-59114-354-3 , p. 143.
- ↑ Julian Ryall: “Wreck of Japanese battleship Hiei may have been located off Solomon Islands”, The Telegraph, February 26, 2018
- ↑ IJN Hiei. RV Petrel, accessed October 29, 2019 .
literature
- Gakken Pictorial Series Vol. 21, IJN Kongo Class Battleships, Tokyo 1999.
- Kaijinsha (publ.): Warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Volume 3, Congo Class (Congo and Hiei), 1996.
- Maru Special, Japanese Naval Vessels Volume 15: Hiei
- Robert D. Ballard, Rick Archbold: Sunk in the Pacific - Guadalcanal ship cemetery. Ullstein Verlag 1999, ISBN 3-548-24605-2 .
- Jane's Publishing Company, 1919: Jane's Fighting ships of World War 1. Studio Editions, London 1990 ISBN 1-85170-378-0 .
Web links
footnote
The unit tons [ts], also called long tons, has 1016 kg, in contrast to the metric ton with 1000 kg. This distinction is only for the sake of clarity, since this unit is used in the international fleet contracts mentioned here.
Remarks
- ↑ actually: barroom brawel after the lights had been shot out
- ↑ The Japanese rank Taisa corresponds to the German rank of captain at sea . The prefix Kaigun indicates that it is a naval officer.
- ↑ The Japanese rank Chūjō corresponds to the German rank of Vice Admiral . The prefix Kaigun indicates that it is a naval officer.