Izumo (ship, 1899)
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The Izumo ( Japanese 出 雲 ) was an armored cruiser of the Japanese Navy . The ship was named after the historical province of Izumo , which was located in the area of today's Shimane Prefecture .
The ship was owned by Sir WG Armstrong-Whitworth & Co., Ltd. from 1897 to 1900 . built in Elswick near Newcastle upon Tyne to a design by the engineer Sir Philip Watts . It was a slightly improved version of the Asama armored cruiser .
history
The Izumo was one of six armored cruisers that were ordered after the First Sino-Japanese War as part of the "six-six program" (six ships of the line - six cruisers ) from foreign shipyards as the core of the Japanese navy. Almost all orders went to Great Britain, but for political and diplomatic reasons the Yakumo was ordered in Germany and her near-sister ship Azuma in France .
The basic design was the same for all six cruisers in the program. They should have 8-inch Armstrong guns as their main armament and reach a speed of 20 to 21 knots. The shipyards were relatively free to design the details. The Izumo was the first ship of the second couple ordered from Armstrong. It differed from the previous Asama and her sister Tokiwa in some details. Outwardly there was a considerable difference due to the three chimneys compared to the two of the first pair.
Russo-Japanese War
During the Russo-Japanese War , the Izumo was initially used with the sister ship Iwate and the armored cruisers Azuma , Yakumo and Tokiwa as the 2nd Division of the United Japanese Fleet against Port Arthur together with the 1st Division, which consisted of six ships of the line. After the Russian squadron in Port Arthur had remained largely inactive and the cruisers stationed in Vladivostok advanced as far as Korea, the 2nd squadron marched north under its commander Kamimura and unsuccessfully bombarded Vladivostok with Izumo , Azuma , Asama , Yakumo and Iwate on March 6 , supported by the cruisers Kasagi and Yoshino stationed there .
After the success of the Russian cruisers from Vladivostok, the Second Fleet of Kamimura was stationed permanently in the Korea Strait with Izumo as the flagship , the armored cruisers Azuma , Tokiwa , Iwate and the two protected cruisers Naniwa and Takachiho to secure the Sea of Japan , further successes of the Russian cruisers and to stop a ship that might break out of Port Arthur. On August 14, 1904, a sea battle broke out at Ulsan after both units had passed each other unrecognized during the night and were on their way back to their bases. The six Japanese cruisers defeated the Russian cruiser squadron under Rear Admiral Karl Jessen , sank the outdated Rurik and severely damaged the armored cruisers Rossija and Gromoboi . The four Japanese armored cruisers also received hits. Izumo was hit twenty times in that battle and two dead. The Iwate was most severely damaged by a hit in casemate N ° 1, which not only put this gun out of action as the riot ammunition exploded. 31 men of the crew died immediately, many of the injured did not survive. The significant damage to the escaped Russian cruisers and the limited repair options in Vladivostok put the cruiser squadron practically out of action until the end of the war. After replenishing the used ammunition and fuel supplies, Izumo went back to sea with Tokiwa and Azuma . Izumo moved to Sasebo in December to carry out necessary repairs. From February 1905 she then secured the transport of troops to Korea. The Iwate initially only received sheet metal cladding over its heavy hit in order to take part in the guard duty, before the fleet command decided at the end of August that it could be discharged and thoroughly repaired. As with the other armored cruisers, the battle mars on the masts were removed, the 47 mm guns were reduced to four and a few 76 mm guns were installed instead. From February 9 to April 1, she was on guard duty in front of Vladivostok and was able to intercept a German steamer.
The Izumo was also involved as Kamimura's flagship in the decisive naval battle near Tsushima on May 26, 1905 . She suffered nine heavier hits and had 34 deaths. The sister ship Iwate served the 2nd Admiral Shimamura Hayao as a flagship and received 17 hits, including at least two of the 305 mm caliber. A chimney and a mast broke and they took in considerable amounts of water. She did not have any immediate deaths, but one of the many injured sailors died later. Both cruisers stayed on Koreastrasse and secured the transport of troops to the Asian mainland and the return of the wounded. After the end of the war, the Iwate ran under Rear Admiral Shimamura with the Niitaka and two destroyers for the first meeting with the Russian Navy on the practical implementation of the peace agreements in Korea, at which the Russian side through Rear Admiral Karl Jessen with the armored cruiser Rossija , the Bogatyr and also two Destroyers was represented.
On September 20, 1909, Izumo left Sasebo to take part in the US celebrations for the foundation of San Francisco 140 years ago from October 19 to 23 . On this trip she also called Hawaii , Monterrey , Santa Barbara and San Diego . The German participant in the ceremony, which was attended by 16 other warships, was Arcona , sent by the East Asia Squadron . The celebration was supposed to show the successful rebuilding of the city after the severe earthquake of 1906. From December 25, 1913, the Izumo worked with the German cruiser Nürnberg on the Mexican west coast during the local revolution. She was stationed there until the outbreak of the World War.
First World War
During the First World War , the armored cruiser Izumo joined the armored cruiser Asama and the former Russian liner Hizen , which had blocked the old German cruiser Geier in Honolulu from October 17 to November 8 until it was interned by the Americans, the newly formed squadron from November 1914 assigned to the British Vice Admiral Patey , who should block the German cruiser squadron 's route north into Canadian waters and protect the Panama Canal . The battle cruiser Australia and the cruiser Newcastle also belonged to this squadron . From December 4th to 6th, the association searched the Galapagos Islands . This was to be followed by a review of the South American coastal area from the Pearl Islands off Panama to the Gulf of Guayaquil . The German squadron, however, was on its way to the Atlantic around Cape Horn and was destroyed on December 8 at the Falkland Islands . Patey's squadron learned this on December 10th in the Gulf of Panama and was then disbanded.
From June 1917 the cruiser Izumo was used in the Mediterranean , where he replaced the cruiser Akashi as the lead ship for the now twelve Japanese destroyers based in Malta , which provided escort and other tasks there within the Anglo-Japanese military alliance. To the existing eight destroyers of Kaba class was Izumo with the 15th Destroyer Flotilla, consisting of the four destroyers of Momo class , marched into the Mediterranean existed.
In December 1918 the Izumo ran with the destroyers Hinoki and Yanagi from Malta to Scapa Flow to guard the interned German deep-sea fleet and to prepare the transfer of seven German submarines to Japan. In March 1919, the three warships with the seven submarines returned to Malta. While eight destroyers continued to Japan with the cruiser Nisshin and the submarines, the Izumo visited Naples , Genoa and Marseille from May 5th to 15th . On July 2, 1919, she and the rest of the destroyers returned to Yokosuka .
The submarines delivered were:
| boat | Type | displacement | Japanese identifier |
|---|---|---|---|
| SM U 125 | UE2 | 1164/1512 tons | until 1921 as O1 |
| SM U 46 | U Ms | 725/940 t | until 1921 as O2 |
| SM U 55 | U Ms | 715/902 tons | until 1921 as O3 |
| SM UC 90 | UC III | 474/560 t | until 1921 as O4 |
| SM UC 99 | UC III | 474/560 t | until 1921 as O5 |
| SM UB 125 | UB III | 516/651 t | until 1921 as O6 |
| SM UB 143 | UB III | 516/651 t | until 1921 as O7 |
Training ship
In 1921 she was downgraded to 1st class coastal defense ship . As part of the Washington fleet agreement , the Izumo was disarmed as a training ship. The previous boiler system was also replaced by six Kampon boilers. This sank the engine power to 7,000 PSi and the speed to 16 knots, which was sufficient for use as a training ship. Numerous training trips between 1921 and 1930 took her to the Indian Ocean and South America.
During the Japanese invasion of China, which started the Second Sino-Japanese War , the Izumo was the flagship of the Third Fleet. In the Battle of Shanghai she sank a Chinese torpedo boat , and on August 14, 1937 shot her Nakajima-90 - seaplane , with whom she had been fitted in 1934, a Chinese aircraft in the defense against an air attack from.
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor of World War II in the Pacific broke out, which opened Izumo in the early morning of December 8 1941 in the port of Shanghai lying, fire on the American River gunboat Wake and the British river gunboat Peterel that were surprised by the outbreak of hostilities. The 310 ts large Peterel , which only served as a message transmitter with a hull crew, was the first ship of the Royal Navy to be sunk by the Japanese because the crew refused to hand it over. The Wake was the only ship in the United States Navy to surrender in World War II.
Thereafter, the Izumo was equipped with anti-aircraft guns and on July 1, 1942, was again classified as a 1st class cruiser, but in the further course of the war served exclusively as a training ship and only in the domestic waters of the Seto Inland Sea .
Whereabouts
On July 24, 1945, the Izumo was sunk in the port of Kure by an air raid by US carrier aircraft. The wreck was lifted and scrapped in 1947.
Sister ship Iwate
Also ordered in 1897, the Iwate was launched on March 29, 1900 and commissioned on March 18, 1901. The Iwate took part in the Russo-Japanese War, the First and Second World Wars. During the First World War , the Iwate initially served in the 2nd Fleet off Tsingtau and then with the first Japanese squadron through the South Seas to Fiji , then into the Australian waters and into the Indian Ocean , where it was used to secure the convoy between Singapore and the Suez Canal was used as a Japanese contribution to the Anglo-Japanese Alliance . From 1916 to 1939 she served as a training ship for long-distance navigation and officer training during the World War. During an American air raid on Kure, it was sunk on July 26, 1945.
The Iwate carried out the training voyage for the 50th officer course with her sister ship Izumo and Asama from June 1922 to February 1923. The ships ran via Honolulu, Los Angeles , the Panama Canal to Rio de Janeiro , where the centenary of Brazil's independence was celebrated. The earth was circled via Buenos Aires , Cape Town , Durban , Colombo , Singapore and Hong Kong .
literature
- Hansgeorg Jentsura: Warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy 1869-1945. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 1976, ISBN 087021893X .
- Arthur W. Jose: The Royal Australian Navy 1914-1918 The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918. 9th edition, Sydney 1941.
- John Roberts, HC Timewell, Roger Chesneau (Ed.), Eugene M. Kolesnik (Ed.): Warships of the World 1860 to 1905 - Volume 2: USA, Japan and Russia. Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Koblenz 1983, ISBN 3-7637-5403-2 .
Web links
- Timothy D. Saxon: Anglo-Japanese Naval Cooperation 1914–1918.
- Izumo's curriculum vitae
- Iwate's CV
- Hiroshi Nishida: Technical details of the Momo class
- Hiroshi Nishida: Technical information on the Kaba class
Footnotes
- ^ Arthur W. Jose: The Royal Australian Navy 1914-1918 The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918. 9th edition, Sydney 1941, p. 125.
- ↑ Commander of the Australian fleet ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in london gazette
- ^ Arthur W. Jose: The Royal Australian Navy 1914-1918 The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918. 9th edition, Sydney 1941, p. 126.
