Kiso (ship, 1921)
 The Kiso 1942 with camouflage paint
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The Kiso ( Japanese 木 曾 ) was a light cruiser of the Imperial Japanese Navy and the last ship of the five-unit Kuma class . The cruiser was named after the Kiso River on Honshu . It served in the Pacific War before it was sunk in an air raid in November 1944.
Pre-war period
The light cruiser Kiso was planned by the Imperial Navy as part of the 1917 “8-4” fleet construction program. The ship was laid down on June 10, 1919 at the Mitsubishi shipyard in Nagasaki and, after a two-year construction period, put into service on May 4, 1921.
Experiments
After the Imperial Japanese Navy began to show increasing interest in the use of reconnaissance aircraft , it was decided as a trial to equip the Kiso with a launching device for an aircraft. In addition, the adjustments began before the cruiser was commissioned. An additional deck was drawn into the bridge structure, which was located between the armored battle bridge and the compass bridge. This deck was intended as a hangar and could accommodate an aircraft. The launch took place via two launch areas, each nine meters long, which were placed on the roof of the two front turrets. After the cruiser's commissioning in 1921, ordinary land-based aircraft such as the Gloster Sparrowhawk were successfully launched via this 18-meter runway . For this purpose, the cruiser turned at high speed against the wind shortly before take-off in order to generate more lift under the aircraft wings. The experiments ended in 1922, the launch platforms were removed and the hangar was used as a radio room.
Early years
After her commissioning, the Kiso was part of the 4th Sentai of the 2nd Fleet and undertook a training run with the squadron in the Yellow Sea . With the reorganization of the Japanese Navy, the cruiser was transferred to the 3rd Sentai of the 1st Fleet in 1922 . In 1924 the ship was docked in order to overtake the machines and, as with her sister ships on the Kiso, to obtain a roofed fire control platform until 1926, which was attached halfway up the fore marshes.
In 1928 she was moved to Tsingtao , where she was used as the flagship of a squadron in Chinese waters until May 1930 . Then she was sent back to the Yokosuka shipyard for modifications until mid-1931 . After that she was posted for a short time as a training ship for gun crews. From September 1935 she was part of the 9th Sentai .
Conversions
In May 1936 the cruiser was docked in order to modernize the machinery and to strengthen the hull. By March 1937, all steam boilers were converted to oil firing.
The armament was changed slightly by 1937: 12.7 mm Vickers machine guns replaced the two individual 8.0 cm L / 40 Type 3 guns and the 7.7 mm Lewis Gun replaced the original one used 6.5 mm machine guns.
From June 15, 1938 to April 1939, the Kiso was again posted as a training ship, this time for the Navy's navigation school.
At the end of 1939, the fire control platform at Maizuru was supplemented by two observation platforms and an optical range finder with a basic length of 3.5 meters was placed on the roof of the bridge structure. The ship did not join the fleet again until November 1940. During this time in the shipyard, the two 12.7 mm Vickers egg carriers were disembarked and replaced by two twin machine guns 2.5 cm L / 60 Type 96 .
Pacific War
Guard duty and Aleutian people
Before the war began, Kiso and her sister ship Tama were assigned to the Sentai 21 of the 5th Fleet. When war broke out in December 1941, they patrolled the waters near the Kuril Islands from their base near Akkeshi .
On April 18, 1942, American planes launched from the USS Enterprise to secure the Doolittle Raid attacked Japanese guard ships. The Kiso rescued the crew of the watch ship Nanshin Maru on April 19 and two days later took over the crew of the Iwate Maru , which had previously been picked up by the submarine I-74 .
At the beginning of May 1942 the Kiso was used as a security ship for a reconnaissance mission against the Aleutian islands of Kiska and Adak . A few weeks later she was the flagship of the Kiska landing party. She used dinghies to drop troops and then transported some of the Americans captured on the island to Japan.
In October 1942 she secured the transport of 900 additional Japanese soldiers to Attu as a security ship. In November she carried out another troop transport with the Tama to Attu. At the end of February 1943, the Kiso secured a cargo ship with supplies for Attu on its journey.
In April 1943, the cruiser was docked, its anti-aircraft armament was reinforced and a Type 21 radar was installed on the forward mast to search for aerial targets. On May 11th, he ran out of a new supply trip to Attu, but had to return after the Japanese had learned of the landings of American troops on Attu.
Next, Kiska should be evacuated . The Kiso was temporarily given a 7.5 cm anti- aircraft gun of the type 88 , which was attached to the aft deck. On July 28, the light cruiser ran to Kiska, picked up 1,189 Japanese soldiers and brought them back to Japan.
Utilities in the South Pacific
With the end of the Aleutian operations, the cruisers of the Sentai 21 were assigned to transport troops to islands in the South Pacific because of their high speed and long range. On September 22nd, 1943 soldiers were deposed in Ponape , on October 21st in Rabaul . On the march back from Rabaul, both cruisers were targeted by an Australian air strike. Bristol Beaufort bombers launched from Guadalcanal attacked the formation at 04 ° 23 'South 153 ° 11' East and scored a bomb hit on the Kiso somewhat starboard from the forward funnel . The explosion of the 250 lbs (113.5 kg) aerial bomb destroyed a starboard engine room, killed twelve sailors, and the cruiser had to retreat halfway to Rabaul for emergency repairs. Then she drove to Truk and then to Japan for further repairs.
While the damage was being repaired, the ship also received additional anti-aircraft armament. Most significant was the removal of the two rear 14.0 cm L / 50 main guns and their replacement with a twin 12.7 cm L / 40 Type 89 A1 , the Navy's standard heavy anti- aircraft gun . In addition, further 25 mm machine guns were installed. On February 24, 1944, Kaigun-Taisa Imamura took command of the Kiso .
In June 1944, both cruisers of the Sentai 21 carried out a troop transport to Chichi-jima , part of the Bonin archipelago .
The End
After the Imperial Navy was unable to prevent American troops from landing in the Philippines in the sea and air battle in the Gulf of Leyte , the Kiso was used to transport troops to reinforce the island's defense. Together with the aircraft carrier Jun'yō , which was only used here as a transporter, it ran first to Brunei on October 30, 1944 .
Since the Americans had succeeded in decoding the Japanese navy's radio communications, they were able to read their radio signals. So they found out about the supply trip and set up submarines to intercept the fleet. One of the submarines dropped six torpedoes on the fleet formation, four of which hit the destroyer Akikaze and sank, but the remaining ships managed to escape.
From Brunei, the fleet left for Manila on November 8th . Once there, the supplies were unloaded on November 10th and the Kiso was ordered to Brunei. The cruiser was supposed to serve as the flagship of a destroyer fleet there and therefore took staff on board.
Still in Manila Bay, the cruiser was attacked by Task Force 38 aircraft on November 13, 1944 and received three hits from starboard bombs. The hits were spread over the length of the ship, so that the cruiser quickly filled with water and sagged to the flat bottom. 105 crew members, including Commander Imamura, survived the sinking of the cruiser.
wreck
The wreck was lifted out of the shallow water in 1955 and scrapped in Manila in 1956.
literature
- Eric LaCroix, Linton Wells: Japanese Cruisers of the Pacific War. US Naval Institute Press, 1997, ISBN 0-87021-311-3 . (English)
Web links
- Use history of the Kiso on combinedfleet.com (Engl.)
- Mission history of the Kiso on gooside.com (jap.)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Japanese Cruisers of the Pacific War. P. 792.
- ↑ Japanese Cruisers of the Pacific War. P. 169.
- ↑ Japanese Cruisers of the Pacific War. P. 12.
- ↑ Japanese Cruisers of the Pacific War. P. 39.
- ↑ a b c d history of the use of the Kiso on gooside.com
- ↑ a b Japanese Cruisers of the Pacific War. P. 168.
- ↑ Japanese Cruisers of the Pacific War. P. 209.
- ↑ Japanese Cruisers of the Pacific War. P. 171.
- ↑ Japanese Cruisers of the Pacific War. P. 211.
- ↑ USN Chronology 1942 on ibiblio.org, viewed July 28, 2012
- ↑ Minutes of the interrogation of Japanese officer Nifumi Mukai , commander of the Japanese marine infantry on Kiska by the US military, sighted on July 28, 2012
- ↑ Japanese Cruisers of the Pacific War. P. 380.
- ↑ USN Chronology 1943 at ibiblio.org, viewed July 28, 2012
- ↑ The Japanese rank Taisa corresponds to the German rank of captain at sea . The prefix Kaigun indicates that it is a naval officer.
- ↑ a b c d combinedfleet.com viewed July 29, 2012
- ↑ There are contradicting information about the number of victims. LaCroix reports 819 casualties on p. 383, while combinedfleet.com limits itself to 89 dead and 105 wounded, does not mention the number of survivors and reports that the majority of the crew survived.