Hyūga (ship, 1918)
 The Hyūga as a hybrid aircraft carrier
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The Hyūga ( Japanese 日 向 ) was a battleship of the Japanese Navy and belonged to the Ise class . The ship's name is dedicated to the former Hyūga Province , an area on the soil of today's Miyazaki Prefecture .
history
After its commissioning in 1918, the Hyūga was assigned to the 1st fleet. She carried out several patrols in the following years and was used as a transporter for food and medical supplies in September 1923 after the great Kanto earthquake . It received several minor modifications in the following period, such as catapults for seaplanes, a curved smoke hood for the chimney, and the maximum possible angle of elevation of the main artillery was increased from 20 ° to 30 ° in 1921. In the wake of tensions with China, it was used several times off the Chinese coast. It was extensively modernized for the first time between 1935 and 1937.
Use in the Pacific War
The Hyūga formed in the early phase of the war - together with her sister ship Ise - an important part of the navy reserve. She was kept ready for this near her home islands. After the Doolittle Raid on April 18, 1942, it was initially used to track down the American aircraft carrier fleet that had started the attack, but returned four days later after an unsuccessful search.
On May 5, 1942, she took part in a target practice with other battleships. After the main guns had been armed with grenades and propellants , a serious accident occurred in tower "E". In the barrel of the left of the two 35.6 cm L / 45 guns, the breechblock failed, so that it was blown off into the turret when the propellant was ignited. The burning propellant charges set fire to further charges in the tower, so that the interior of the tower and the areas below were cremated. Rapid flooding of the ammunition chambers of the two aft towers saved the ship from destruction. 51 seafarers were killed.
The damage to the tower was never repaired and tower "E" was completely removed during the subsequent stay in the shipyard. The shaft to the ammunition chambers was closed with an armored plate on which four triplets of the type 96 (25 mm L / 60 anti-aircraft machine guns) were placed.
As early as July 1942, the Hyūga was planned to be converted into a hybrid aircraft carrier after the heavy losses of the Japanese aircraft carriers in the Battle of Midway . On May 1, 1943, work began in the shipyard near Sasebo . The work was completed in early October 1943.
(For the technical details of the conversion, see the main article → Ise class )
Battle of Cape Engano
The Hyūga was used in the only major battle in which it took part, the sea and air battle in the Gulf of Leyte in October 1944 in Admiral Ozawa's bait fleet off Cape Engaño. Like her sister ship Ise , however, she did not carry any aircraft in this battle. On the morning of October 25, their Type 13 radar for searching for aerial targets spotted the first American aircraft at a distance of 105 nautical miles .
The Hyūga was assigned to Group 6 of the two aircraft carriers Chiyoda and Chitose , which ran around eight kilometers behind Group 5 around the carriers Zuikaku and Zuihō . The Hyūga and a destroyer secured the girders running in the keel line on port side, while the light cruiser Tama and another destroyer covered the starboard side.
The group was the target of numerous attacks by dive bombers from Task Force 38 , which severely damaged the Chiyoda and sank the Chitose . The Hyūga itself suffered damage from close hits, which led to water ingress. The entered list of 5 ° could, however, be compensated by counter-flooding. An order to tow away the burning Chiyoda turned out to be impracticable because of the ongoing air strikes. The Hyūga covered the heavily battered porter for two hours , while the Chiyoda's ship protection stopped the water ingress and began to extinguish the fire.
Around noon, however , the Hyūga received the order to retreat after her fleet part had fulfilled the order to act as bait for the American aircraft carrier for four hours with heavy losses. The Chiyoda was left behind with destroyers as backup, but eventually went down with all of her crew after an attack by American cruisers.
On the march back to Japan, the Hyūga survived two torpedo attacks by American submarines undamaged and returned to a Japanese port at noon on October 27th.
As early as November 7, 1944, their catapults were removed during a stay at the shipyard in order to enlarge the field of fire of the towers "C" and "D". She was then sent to the Philippines to deliver ammunition and troop reinforcements for the defenders. In January 1945 she was transferred to Lingga . When the region was evacuated, it was loaded with fuel, raw rubber and tin. Technical personnel from the oil fields were also taken on board by the Hyūga . The fleet's march back to Japan was successful, although around 23 Allied submarines attempted attacks on the way.
Destruction in Kure
Since there was no fuel available and the Hyūga no longer had a meaningful purpose , it was anchored around 15 nautical miles from Kure near an island and provided with a camouflage to under the command of Rear Admiral Kusagawa Kiyoshi, who had been brought out of retirement to act as a floating anti-aircraft platform.
The shortage of fuel even forced the navy to set up mobile, coal-fired steam boilers on the weather deck to use their steam to power the heating and other ship systems. Heavy oil was only available for a generator in the engine room to supply the servomotors of the heavy anti-aircraft guns with electricity.
The first major attack by American carrier aircraft on the Japanese ships at Kure took place on March 19, 1945. The Hyūga received a hit by a 227 kg bomb amidships, which killed 40 crew members and destroyed a 127 mm anti-aircraft gun. The superstructure of the ship also suffered splinter damage from several close hits.
Another attack took place on July 24th. Several SBC Helldiver dive bombers hit the ship with eight aerial bombs weighing 227 kg, 454 kg and 907 kg. Three 227-kg bombs hit the bridge structure and, in addition to causing serious damage, caused a fire. Rear Admiral Kiyoshi and the senior officers were killed. Three heavy bombs destroyed the flight deck at the stern. Two of them penetrated deep into the ship and when they exploded tore open parts of the ship's side below the waterline, so that flooding occurred in the aft ship and the ship was deeper in the water. Combined with damage done by other bombs amidships just above the waterline, the effect was fatal - the Hyūga overran and sagged on the shallow bottom.
Meanwhile under the command of a lieutenant , the crew remained on the ship. On July 28, further attacks followed, in which two more bombs hit the wreck. The sailors stayed on board until August 1, before they left the Hyūga , driven by hunger . Around 200 crew members were killed in the air strikes and around 600 others were wounded.
wreck
The Hyūga decreased in shallow water at the coordinates 34 ° 10 ' N , 132 ° 33' O . It was scrapped after the war in 1947.
Evidence and references
Individual evidence
- ^ HP Willmott: The battle of Leyte Gulf: the last fleet action. Indiana University Press, 2005, ISBN 0-253-34528-6 , pp. 155 and following.
- ↑ REPORTS OF THE US NAVAL TECHNICAL MISSION TO JAPAN 1945-1946: S-06-1, Reports of Damage to Japanese Warships-Article 1, pp. 56, 57, 70.
- ↑ Chronology of the USN 1945, English, viewed May 26, 2010
Web links
literature
Only Japanese sources specific to the Hyūga or the battleships of the Japanese Navy:
- Maru Special: Japanese Naval Vessels. (first series in 56 volumes), Volume 12: Ise (Tokyo 1977) and second series Volume 113: History of the 'Fuso' and 'Ise' classes. Tokyo 1986.
- Gakken Pictorial Series: Volume 26, Ise Class Tokyo 2000.
- Gakken (publ.): Battleships of Japan. Tokyo 2004.
- Kaijinsha (publ.): The Imperial Japanese Navy. (in 14 volumes), Volume 1 (Battleships 1) Tokyo 1989/1994.
- Fukui Shizuo: Japanese Naval Vessels Illustrated. 1869-1945. (in three volumes), Volume 1, Battleships and Battlecruisers. Tokyo 1974.
- Todaka Kazushige: Japanese Naval Warship. (so far in 6 volumes) Volume 2, Battleships and Battle Cruisers. Kure Maritime Museum, Kure 2005.
- Ishiwata Kohji: Japanese Battleships. Ships of the World. Volume 391, Tokyo 1988.
- Model Art No. 6: Drawings of IJN Vessels. Volume 1, Battleships and Destroyers, Tokyo 1989.