Kumano (ship, 1937)
 The Kumano before 1940
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The Kumano ( Japanese熊 野) was a Mogami-class cruiser of the Imperial Japanese Navy . The ship was named after the Kumano River in Wakayama Prefecture . The ship was used in the Pacific War before being sunk by American planes on November 25, 1944.
Planning and construction
The Kumano was put into service three years after her keel was laid in Kobe in October 1937. The main armament, as with its sister ships, consisted of 15 15.5 cm L / 60-year-3 guns in five triplet turrets . The reason for this type of armament was that the cruiser was considered a light cruiser in the sense of international fleet agreements .
When the signs of war began to intensify, Japan terminated the naval agreement and so the Kumano , like the other ships of the Mogami class , could be equipped with 20.3 cm L / 50 in five twin towers in 1939 and 1940 . With the beginning of the Pacific War , all cruisers of this class, including the Kumano , were reclassified to heavy cruisers .
Modernizations
The Kumano was upgraded several times during its service. As early as 1942 it was equipped with a Type 21 radar. During repair work in 1944, it was also given a Type 13 radar to search for air targets and a Type 22 radar to search for surface targets.
25-mm anti-aircraft guns were retrofitted several times and partly replaced previously installed machine guns. 50 tubes, distributed on triple and double mounts and individual 25 mm weapons formed their final configuration.
Calls
The Kumano was used in the Pacific War. She took part in the Japanese invasion of Malaysia in 1941 , one of her Aichi E13A reconnaissance aircraft was lost in the shadow of the Force Z in early December 1941 .
She was one of the cruisers involved in the attack in the Indian Ocean in April 1943 . She was involved in the sinking of several cargo ships.
During the Battle of Midway in June 1942, the cruiser division that was supposed to bomb the Midway Islands and to which the Kumano belonged was attacked by American planes. While the Mikuma was sunk and the Mogami sustained severe damage, the Kumano and her sister ship Suzuya escaped undamaged.
On July 18, 1943, after leaving Rabaul in use as escort for a troop transport, it was damaged by an aerial bomb hit near by a Grumman TBF bomber launched from Guadalcanal .
In February 1944 she was involved in the evacuation of Truk .
Leyte Golf
At the Battle of Leyte , the Kumano crossed the Sibuyan Sea as part of Vice Admiral Kurita's fleet to break through the San Bernardino Strait to the American landing fleet . Before the island of Samar , the Japanese combat groups finally met Taffy 3 , the only cover group that the American transporters had left off the Philippine coast after Admiral Halsey had withdrawn from them the powerful Task Force 38 to hunt a Japanese bait fleet.
The 7th Cruiser Division, to which the Kumano also belonged, opened fire on the light aircraft carriers at 7:10 a.m. and started the attack at full speed. Ten minutes later the USS Johnston broke out of a fog bank and fired a torpedo fan at the formation from around 9,000 meters away . The last torpedo of the fan hit the bow of the Kumano and tore a hole in the top of the ship. This damage ensured that the stability of the fore ship was no longer given and the front part up to the capstan could no longer withstand the pressure of the water that the cruiser cut at high speed, first collapsed and then buckled.
With only 10 knots, the ship had to withdraw from the battle on October 25, 1944 and set out for Manila . A day later it was attacked by American carrier aircraft in the Sibuyan Sea, which scored three hits with 500 kg bombs. A boiler room filled up after a close hit, two anti-aircraft guns and the radar were damaged by a bomb that exploded on deck near the bridge, and two hits amidships destroyed the supply lines to other boiler rooms and severely damaged one of the cruiser's turbines. This meant that 87% of the available boiler capacity had failed and the ship was stopped. 55 sailors were killed and 99 wounded. Damage control teams put a boiler back into operation and the ship initially ran at 2, later at 10 knots to Manila. After emergency repairs, the Kumano left port on November 5th with a temporarily repaired bow and a top speed of 15 knots.
Downfall
On the night of November 5 to 6, 1944, the two poorly repaired heavy cruisers Kumano and Aoba joined the MATA-31 convoy, which consisted of six cargo ships, two outpost boats and five submarines and was supposed to run to Formosa .
On the morning of November 6, the convoy was stopped by a pack of four US submarines that sank the freighter Kaga Maru and attacked the Kumano . The commander of the Kumano was able to outmaneuver 24 of the 26 torpedoes fired , but two hit the cruiser. One exploded on the forecastle level with the bridge, the other hit amidships and caused the starboard engine room to be flooded. Progressive flooding also submerged the other engine rooms. The ship's security troops finally brought the water ingress under control, but had to seal off the engine rooms and the cruiser was stopped.
The Kumano had to be towed into the bay of Dasol by a freighter with a speed of only 2 knots . Days later she was moved to Santa Cruz , Luzon , for repairs.
Before the work was completed, she was attacked by carrier aircraft from the USS Ticonderoga on November 25th . After five torpedo hits on port side and four hits from 227 kg bombs, the Kumano capsized . The ship spun and stayed afloat for a few minutes before sinking. 595 sailors were able to save themselves, 441, among them the commander Soichiro Hitomi, perished.
wreck
The wreck of the Kumano was tracked down and examined by a US rescue team during the war. The place where the ship went down is at the coordinates 15 ° 45 ′ N , 119 ° 48 ′ E, , the wreck is up the keel and is partly in the mud with the superstructure Reason.
Evidence and references
Remarks
- ↑ for December 1939 according to Japanese Cruisers of the Pacific War , p. 452
literature
- Mogami class. Gakken Pacific War Series, number 38, Gakken, Tokyo 2002, ISBN 405602880X .
- Mogami and Tone class heavy cruisers. In: Ships of the Japanese Navy. Issue 7, Kojinsha, 1990, ISBN 4-7698-0457-1 .
- Todaka Kazushige: Japanese Naval Warship. (so far in 6 volumes) Volume 4, Cruisers, Kure Maritime Museum, Kure 2005.