Kongō (ship, 1912)
 The Kongō after the renovation
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The Kongō ( Japanese 金剛 ), named after a mountain near Osaka (from Sanskrit Vajra for an unbreakable stone (diamond) or the thunderbolt as a weapon of Indra ), was a Japanese warship that was used in the First and Second World Wars . She was the lead ship of the four-unit Kongō class named after her .
development
The Kongō itself was the last large warship of the Japanese Navy to be built abroad. Her three sister ships were then built based on the model and the original plans of the Kongō in Japan, including the Kirishima as the first Japanese capital ship built at a Japanese private shipyard.
The design came from Great Britain and was based closely on the then most modern battle cruisers of the Royal Navy, the so-called "splendid cats" (freely translated: fantastic big cats) of the Lion class and the tigers . Compared to the HMS Lion , a more favorable arrangement of the turrets with a better combination of the machinery was chosen for the Kongō and a full-fledged medium artillery was added - improvements that the British Tiger also took over. The Japanese ship also received a stronger main caliber (14 inches = 35.6 cm versus 13.5 inches = 34.3 cm). The Kongō , however, also shared the weaknesses of the large, fast and heavily armed British ships, namely their inadequate armor, which the Lion almost fatally twice and which caused the catastrophe of Queen Mary , who was destroyed with almost the entire crew on the Skagerrak .
General data
- Start of construction: January 17, 1911, Vickers Shipyard , Barrow
- Launched: May 18, 1912
- Commissioned: August 16, 1913
- Reconstruction: 1935–1937
- Fate: hit by three torpedoes from the submarine USS Sealion II on November 21, 1944 and then capsized .
Construction contract
The companies Vickers and Siemens competed for the construction contract for the Kongō, and both also worked with bribes for the Ministry of the Navy . For Vickers, the arms dealer Basil Zaharoff was said to be successful. The corruption case became public in Japan as a Siemens scandal in 1914 and led to the resignation of Japanese Prime Minister Yamamoto Gonnohyōe .
Mission history of the Kongō
After the Kongō had been put into service by the Japanese Navy as a battle cruiser , it initially acted as a backup during the First World War in several occupation actions by the Japanese army against German colonies in the Pacific.
In 1924 the tubes of the main guns and parts of the fire control system were replaced in order to repair any weaknesses in performance. After the Washington Agreement , the Kongō was radically modernized into a battleship in 1929 as one of the few capital ships granted to Japan . By renewing the machinery, strengthening its armor and upgrading with reconnaissance aircraft, the combat value of the Kongo was increased. The second modernization phase from 1935 to 1937 led to a further increase in speed; their hull was lengthened by 8 m and the anti-aircraft armament was reinforced. The former battle cruiser was now listed as a Fast Battleship in the Japanese inventory.
1938 took Kongō am against China war part. Kongo reconnaissance planes dropped some bombs on Fuzhou . Another modernization took place in 1941: the fire-fighting systems on board were upgraded, and the turret armor on the four main turrets was reinforced.
Kongō and Haruna were assigned to the Second Fleet and ran from Saiki towards Macau . She then secured the landing of Japanese soldiers in the Philippines at Aparri and Vigan . The Kongō was also part of the cover group for the aircraft carriers that attacked Colombo on Ceylon .
In 1942, at the same time as her sister ship Kirishima , the Kongō received a first search radar of Type 21 Kai 1, connected to the A5 antenna with transmitting and receiving parts (4 × 6 elements) arranged one above the other on the foremar at the front of the fire control device for the heavy artillery.
Kongō and Haruna shelled Henderson Field and other US installations on Guadalcanal in 1942 . On October 26, 1942, the Kongo was attacked by torpedo bombers of the Enterprise during the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands , but not damaged.
In the following weeks she acted as a cover group for the coastal fire operation of the sister ship Kirishima against Guadalcanal.
As with her sister ship Haruna , after the loss of her sister ships Hiei and Kirishima, the Kongō also decided to reinforce the armored protection of the steering gear. During the modernization reconstruction from late 1943 to early 1944, the number of 6-inch casemate guns was reduced to eight (four on both sides), the heavy flak was reinforced to 12 × 12.7 cm in six twins, and the light flak was retrofitted (to 34 tubes 25 mm in six triplets and eight twins). In July 1944, two sea search and fire control radars Type 22 Kai 4M (later Kai 4S) on the other side of the bridge tower and a Type 13 aerial warning radar on the main mast were retrofitted, and the light flak was brought to the final level of 100 tubes (plus 10 transportable additional guns) 25 mm caliber (18 triplets, 8 twins, 30 plus 10 single mounts).
In 1944, the Kongō took part in the sea and air battle in the Gulf of Leyte . During the Battle of Samar, the Kongō scored hits on the US destroyer Hoel and the escort aircraft carrier Gambier Bay on October 25 . She sank the US destroyer escort Samuel B. Roberts .
On the night of 21 November 1944, went through Kongō together with the Yamato and Nagato the Taiwan Strait . At 1:46 a.m., the American submarine Sealion shot a fan of six torpedoes at the Japanese naval formation. Two torpedoes hit the Kongo , another the destroyer Urakaze . While the Urakaze went down immediately with the entire crew, the Kongō could still run at 16 knots. But two of her boiler rooms were full and she was already listing . At 5:20 a.m., the crew lost the fight against the water ingress. The Kongō , secured by two destroyers, stopped. At 5:24 a.m., the US submarine in pursuit registered a powerful explosion and the Kongo disappeared from its radar. Presumably it capsized as a result of the list and the ammunition in one of its magazines exploded. About 1,200 sailors drowned with the Kongō at position 26 ° 9 ' N , 121 ° 23' E, in the 106 m deep water there. The destroyer escorts were only able to save 237 survivors in heavy seas . The Commander-in-Chief of the 3rd Division, Vice Admiral Suzuki, and the Commander of the Kongo , Rear Admiral Shimazaki, went down with the ship.
wreck
The exact location of the Kongo wreck is unclear.
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.
literature
Only sources specific to the Congo- class or the battleships of the Japanese Navy:
- Gakken Pictorial Series: Vol.21 IJN Congo Class Battleships. Tokyo 1999
- Maru Special: Japanese Naval Vessels (first series in 56 volumes), Volume 9: Congo. Tokyo 1976, with Volume 54 Battleships - Supplement. Tokyo 1981.
- Maru Special: Japanese Naval Vessels (Second Series) Volume 112: History of the Congo- Class. Tokyo 1986, with Volume 116: History of the Japanese Battleships. Tokyo 1986.
- Kaijinsha (publ.): The Imperial Japanese Navy. (in 14 volumes), Volume 2 (Battleships 2), Congo class, Tokyo 2nd edition 1995
- Chihaya Masataka, Abe Yasuo: IJN Kongo Battleship 1912–1944. Windsor 1971
- Steve Wiper: IJN Congo Class Battleships. Tucson 2001.
- Watanabe Yoshiyuki: Battleships of Japan. Gakken, Tokyo 2004.
- 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.
Web links
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.
- ^ A b Analysis of the material on Mr. Tully's demise
- ↑ Zaharoff: Fear of victory . In: Der Spiegel . No. 47 , 1965, p. 128-130 ( Online - Nov. 17, 1965 ).