Yamashiro (ship, 1917)
 Drawing of the Yamashiro in the last construction stage
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The Yamashiro ( Japanese山城) was a battleship of the Imperial Japanese Navy . The ship was named after the historic province of Yamashiro in the southern part of what is now Kyoto Prefecture .
She and her sister ship Fusō were considered Japan's first “super dreadnoughts ” because, like their predecessors, the Kongō class, they were equipped with 35.6 cm guns, but their number had increased from eight to twelve.
history
While the funds for the Fusō were approved in 1911, permission for the construction of the Yamashiro could not be granted until 1913.
The Yamashiro was laid down on November 20, 1913. The launch was on November 3, 1915, and the Imperial Japanese Navy was able to put the battleship into service on March 31, 1917. The two ships of the Fusō class each carried six heavy 35.60 cm twin towers, two towers in front and two aft and two towers in the central nave. The original machines were four Brown Curtiss turbines that produced 40,000 hp from 24 Mijabara boilers on the four screws. That was enough for a speed of 23 knots.
modernization
Since a moratorium on the construction of new capital ships until 1936 had been agreed at the international naval conferences in Washington (1922) and London (1930) , all capital ships of the Japanese navy were converted and modernized. The ships of the Fusō class were lengthened by 7.60 m over the stern. By adding torpedo bulges , the width of the battleship increased by four meters. The horizontal armor was reinforced from 32 to 51 mm to 51 to 98 mm. The elevation angles of the heavy artillery were increased from 30 ° to 43 ° and that of the middle artillery from 15 ° to 30 °. The side underwater torpedo tubes were removed because of the bulge attachment.
The 24 old coal-fired Mijabara boilers were replaced with six new Kanpon boilers and the four Brown Curtiss turbines with four Kanpon turbines. Thanks to the new, space-saving drive system, the drive power could be increased to 76,889 hp. The Yamashiro then reached a speed of 24.75 knots.
This total renovation changed the appearance of the Fusō class considerably. The front chimney fell away and they received a new pagoda-shaped tower mast. This tower mast took up more space on the Yamashiro than on the Fusō . As a result, Tower C of the Yamashiro pointed astern in the lashing position. The catapult was arranged on the starboard bulge of the Yamashiro , while the Fusō was initially on tower C and was only moved to the stern in 1941. The belt armor, which was supposed to strengthen the protection against flat track fire and torpedo attacks on the sides of the ship, had been lengthened on the Yamashiro compared to her sister ship and now also protected the steering gear room .
Pacific War
Both ships took part in the Second World War. During the Midway operations , Fusō and Yamashiro were used as remote security for the Aleutian landings. In the first years of the war, the tasks of the Yamashiro, which were considered too slow for use with fast aircraft carriers, were limited to the training of recruits and the implementation and securing of troop transports. Only when the front drew nearer in 1943/44 and the bulk of the Japanese aircraft carrier fleet at Midway and the Marianas had been destroyed, the Yamashiro and Fusō were upgraded according to the Japanese possibilities. The Yamashiro received an aerial radar , a surface search radar and a simple fire control radar . To this end, an early form of an infrared light- based friend / foe detection system was installed. The anti-aircraft armament was drastically increased.
Battle in Surigaostrasse
Yamashiro and Fusō were the core of Nishimura's association, which met a security association of US battleships, cruisers, destroyers, and speedboats in the Strait of Surigao in the early morning of October 25, 1944 .
During the night it was initially possible to repel several attacks by American speedboats and destroyers . The Yamashiro sank the US speedboat PT-493 , but was hit by two torpedoes from US destroyers. However, thanks to the precise picture of the situation provided by their radar location, the Americans managed to collect their own fleet in such a way that they could open concentrated fire on the Yamashiro shortly before 4:00 a.m. with eight cruisers and five battleships and several destroyers . Her sister ship Fusō had already sunk by this time. The Yamashiro was hit by several hundred shells of various calibres out of the dark and had to turn away. Since the American fire control was based on radar and did not require visual contact, the Yamashiro , which did not have such an effective system, could not defend itself effectively. 20 minutes later, after two more torpedo hits by US destroyers, the burning wreck sank at position 10 ° 22 ′ 20 ″ N , 125 ° 21 ′ 20 ″ E. . Eleven Japanese sailors survived the ship's sinking. Other survivors refused to be pulled out of the water by the Americans or later fell victim to natives on the surrounding islands. Including these, around 1,300 crew members of the Yamashiro died .
The Yamashiro was the last battleship to be sunk as a result of an artillery battle with other battleships.
wreck
The wreck was discovered on November 23, 2017 by the research vessel Petrel in the Strait of Surigao at a depth of 191 meters.
Web links
- Performance analysis of the US battleships involved after the battle in Surigaostraße
- Processing of the course of the battle in Surigaostraße from a Japanese perspective by Anthony Tully
- Report on the dive in 2006 to the Yamashiro on xray-mag.com, viewed on August 30, 2011 (PDF file; 1.35 MB)
Individual evidence
- ^ Processing of the course of the battle in Surigaostraße from a Japanese perspective by Anthony Tully, seen on June 16, 2011
- ^ IJN Yamashiro. RV Petrel, accessed October 29, 2019 .