Kongõ class

2023-02-01 -

IJN KONGÕ

The KongÕ class, named after Japanese mountains, comprised four ships of the latest battlecruiser design under the 191011 Expansion Program. The lead ship Kongõ was built by Vickers in England, so the Imperial Japanese Navy could study the latest British construction techniques before building her three sister ships, Hiei, Haruna and Kirishima in Japan. Fast for their time at 27.5 knots, their main battery was 14in (35.5cm) calibre arranged in four twin gun turrets, two forward, two aft, the latter pair further apart. Midships turrets, common on British 12in gunned battlecruisers, were deemed a flawed arrangement. The Kongõ design was such an improvement that the Royal Navy followed it closely when building HMS Tiger. During WWI the four battlecruisers operated in safe waters patrolling off the Chinese coast. In fact the British government officially asked if two or more units could be loaned for their battlecruiser fleet in the North Sea, a request that was politely refused. The four ships survived under the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty, but Japan came close to losing Hiei when the 1930 London Naval Treaty was signed.

The battlecruisers were built with three funnels, but by 1930 the forward funnels had been removed and between 1933 and 1940 each battlecruiser underwent a two-year extensive modification, which reclassified them as fast battleships, fuelled entirely by oil and capable of 30 knots. Armour protection was extensively upgraded and each stern lengthened

7.9m (26ft) allowing an air wing of three float planes. Each forward superstructure was completely reconstructed in the tall pagoda mast style to accommodate the growing number of fire-control systems for the different calibre guns, plus the aft superstructures now resembled short box-like towers incorporating an enclosed lookout platform. Casemate 6in guns were reduced from 16 to 14, further reduced to eight on Kongõ and Haruna during the war. New 5in dual-purpose guns were added and their smaller anti-aircraft armament became 10 x 25mm calibre guns, but by 1944 Kongõ and Haruna boasted up to 118. The growth of the new Japanese fast carrier force created a need for high speed escorts, for which the KongÕs were ideal, notwithstanding that they were still very vulnerable to air, surface and underwater attack.

Between December 1941 and October 1944, Kongõ was paired with Haruna in the Third Battleship Division, sailing on the same operational sorties. At the Battle of Leyte Gulf 25 October 1944, Kongõ sank the destroyer USS Samuel B. Roberts, but sustained relentless US dive-bomber assaults in return, one of which caused a gash on her starboard side which opened up the contents of several oil tanks into the sea, necessitating Kongõ’s withdrawal.

Upon entering Formosa Strait in the early morning of 21 November, en-route to Kure for repairs, Kongõ and her consorts were spotted by the submarine USS

Sealion, which fired nine torpedoes, two of which hit Kongõ on the port side flooding two boiler rooms. Listing at 45 degrees, Kongõ fell out of line, while a third torpedo sank the destroyer Urakaze with all hands. Limping at 11 knots, tragedy struck when Kongõ’s forward 14in magazine suddenly exploded breaking the hull in two. The battleship sank with the loss of 1,250 crewmen, whilst 347 survivors were rescued by her escort destroyers. Kongõ was the only Japanese battleship sunk by a submarine during the war.

IJN HARUNA

Laid down in 1912 at Kawasaki, Haruna was accepted into service on 19 April 1915. After never firing a shot in anger during WWI, disaster struck on 12 September 1920 off Cape Motsuta, Hokkaido, when a breech explosion occurred in

IJN Kongõ

Class: Kongõ

Displacement: 36,600 tonnes

Length: 222m (728ft 4in)

Beam: 29m (95ft 2in)

Draft: 9.7m (31ft 10in)

Speed: 30 knots

Range: 19,312km (12,000 miles)

Crew: 1,500 men

Armament: 4 x twin 14in guns • 8 single 6in guns • 4 x twin 5in DP/AA guns • 76 x 25mm AA guns • 3 x Nakajima E8N and/or Kawanishi E7 float planes Armour: Decks - 38mm (1.5in), Waterline belt 203mm (8in)

expected Allied invasion of the Homeland, Haruna was assigned to the Kure Naval District. Once there she was camouflaged with green painted stripes and copious tree foliage in a vain attempt to foil recognition from the air, but carriers of US Task Force 38 began a series of long-range aerial attacks on the remaining warships in Kure’s Hiroshima Bay, endeavouring to destroy the last remnants of Japan’s navy. At 4.15pm on 28 July 1945 Haruna sustained eight aerial bomb hits, which sank the battleship at her moorings with the loss of 65 officers and men. The British Commonwealth Occupation Force at Kure, which had responsibility for demilitarising that region of Japan, raised Haruna in 1946 and scrapped the battleship in situ.

IJN HIEI

Hiei was the first of the remaining three Kongõ-class battlecruisers to be built in Japan, her keel laid down at Yokosuka Naval Arsenal on 4 November 1911 with most of her components manufactured in Britain and completed on 4 August 1914. In 1929 Hiei was demilitarised and converted into a training battleship to comply with the limitations of the 1930 London Naval Treaty to avoid being scrapped. Her No. 4 aft 14in turret was removed in addition to all her secondary armament. Boilers were reduced, cutting her maximum speed to 18 knots. Her forward funnel was removed leaving two funnels, of which one was thinner than the other, until 1937, when they were made equal in size. All aircraft and related equipment was landed.

Care was taken to carefully store and preserve all removed guns and parts, which were reassembled in 1936 when

Japan revoked the treaty. Between 1937 and 1940, Hiei was reconstructed under the capital ship modernisation program, reclassifying her as a fast battleship (see Kongõ for details) except that Hiei’s pagoda superstructure was rebuilt as a prototype for the upcoming Yamato class.

During the Pacific War, Hiei and sister ship Kirishima, served together as biggun support units for the Kidõ Butai (Mobile Force) the name of the 1st Air

Fleet Carrier Strike Force, commencing with the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Carrier operations in which Hiei took part during the early victories of 1941-42 were at Rabaul, Kavieng, the Gilbert Islands and the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean; followed by air raids on Darwin in Northern Australia and Java in the Dutch East Indies.

In April Hiei escorted the carriers that attacked the British bases at Colombo and Trincomalee in Ceylon. As a component of the Second Fleet at Midway in June 1942, Hiei was meant to provide close-in support for the carriers, but the fleet was well behind on the 4 June, the day when four Japanese carriers were lost to US carrier air strikes. After Hiei participated in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands 26-30 October, her next assignment was to bombard American-held Henderson Airfield on Guadalcanal on the night of 1213 November 1942 in advance of Japanese landings the next day. Rear Admiral Abe, flying his flag in Hiei, led Kirishima and 11 destroyers into Ironbottom Sound, the stretch of water between Guadalcanal and Savo Island. Unbeknown to Abe, US cryptologists had uncovered the plan resulting in Task Force 67.4 of five cruisers and eight destroyers lying in wait that night for Abe’s ships.

Rear Admiral Callaghan, flying his flag in the heavy cruiser USS San

IJN Hiei