Mutsu (ship, 1920)
 The Mutsu in the 1930s
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The Mutsu ( Japanese 陸 奥 ), named after the ancient province of Mutsu , was a battleship of the Japanese Navy that was used in World War II . She was the second ship in the Nagato class and was destroyed by the explosion of one of her magazines in 1943.
Mission history of the Mutsu
On February 6, 1922, three months after its actual surrender to the Japanese Navy, representatives of the United States proposed at the Naval Conference in Washington that the Mutsu, along with two American Colorado- class battleships, should be scrapped so that Japan could allow it Can keep the total amount of ship space. The Japanese delegation then claimed that the Mutsu had already been put into service on September 10, 1921 and that its construction had been paid for by donations from Japanese schoolchildren, which they did not want to disappoint. Due to fierce Japanese resistance, it was finally agreed to adjust the borders upwards so that Japan could keep the Mutsu and the United States only had to scrap one of its battleships. After the contract was signed, the Mutsu remained the last battleship built in Japan for almost 20 years.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor , the Mutsu was mainly used for training purposes in safe waters.
During the Battle of Midway in June 1942, the Mutsu was deployed a few hundred nautical miles behind the aircraft carriers and had no contact with the enemy. She took over a large part of the rescued sailors of the sunk aircraft carriers Kaga , Akagi , Sōryū and Hiryū and transported them back to Japan.
In the fleet operations around Guadalcanal , she acted as a backup ship for the Japanese aircraft carriers. In 1943 she carried out a supply operation for a Japanese garrison force on the island of Attu .
On June 8, 1943, the Mutsu was anchored near the island of Suō-Ōshima ( Yamaguchi ). Shortly after the crew had had lunch, a serious explosion occurred in the aft magazine of the main guns below tower 3. The ship was torn in two, the front of which sank immediately, while part of the stern stayed afloat until 2 a.m. the next morning. Only 353 crew members could be rescued, while 1,121 seamen, including the commander and some visitors, were killed.
A commission that was supposed to investigate what happened did not come to a clear conclusion. Even though parts of a turret were recreated and experiments were carried out with various types of ammunition that had been on board the Mutsu , sabotage or an attack by a submarine could not initially be ruled out. Only later dives to the wreck proved an explosion of the ammunition stocks without any external influence. In addition to an accident, willful sabotage remains a possible cause of the ship's destruction to this day.
In 1972 the bow of the ship and the tip of the stern were lifted with the two oars and scrapped. Equipment and personal items of the crew as well as a screw, a main anchor, various small guns and a main gun barrel can be seen today in the Yamato Museum and in the Mutsu Memorial ( 陸 奥 記念 館 , Mutsu kinenkan ) in Suō-Ōshima .
wreck
The stern of the Mutsu is 33 ° 58 ' N , 132 ° 24' O are dived upside down on the seabed and can. The sea is about 40 meters deep there and the wreck rises to a depth of about 20 meters.
Individual evidence
- ^ David Kahn: The Reader of Gentlemen's Mail. In: david-kahn.com. 2008, archived from the original on April 30, 2014 ; accessed on August 18, 2015 .
- ↑ The Yamato Museum's website. Retrieved August 18, 2015.
- ↑ Private homepage about a dive to Mutsu ( Memento from November 25, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
literature
- RA Burt: Japanese Battleships 1897-1945. Arms and Armor Press, ISBN 0-85368-758-7
- Pacific War Series. Vol. 15, Gakken
Web links
- Salvage and museum pieces (English)
- Operation documentation of the Mutsu at combinedfleet (English)