NAVAL OBITUARY

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 72, Issue 6243, 17 June 1946, Page 5

NAVAL OBITUARY

END OF JAPANESE FLEET SCUTTLED OR SCRAPPED (Official N.Z. Correspondent in Japan) Despite the crippling damage which it suffered at the hands of Allied warships and bombers, the Japanese Navy must still be ranked as one of the greatest fleets in the world. Although it has been stripped of armaments, it is still hard at work repatriating the masses of Japanese prisoners from all parts of East Asia, and sweeping the thousands of Japanese and Allied mines which remain in the waters surrounding the home islands. But their task is nearing completion and soon the brilliant glare of the acetylene torch will be seen as the remaining vessels of this once mighty navy are converted into tons of scrap metal. The remnants of the Japanese fleet include the battleship Nagato, two carriers, three cruisers, 27 destroyers, more than 50 escort vessels, 12 transports, three hospital ships, three converted transports, one submarine tender, and a miscellany of minelayers and other small craft. In recent weeks, Allied naval forces have scuttled or sunk by gunfire the majority of the 40,000 tons of Japanese submarine forces which survived the war, plus a handful of German and Italian submarines which were discovered in Japanese waters.

It is interesting to sort out the fate of the major units of the Japanese fleet. Some, like the battleship Haruna, were prematurely reported as destroyed. Actually, the Haruna was finally destroyed by bombing, but she is in Kure harbour and not fathoms deep off the Philippines as early reports indicated. At the peak of her naval power, Japan possessed 12 battleships. The Yamato and Musashi, classed as 60,000 tonners, were recognised as among the largest capital ships in the world. The latter was sunk off the Philippines and 16 torpedoes sank the Yamoto off the Ryukyus when she attempted a strike at the American fleet off Okinawa. The sister battleships Nagato and Mutsu are destined to have coincidental connections with atomic bombs—the Nagato is to a target ship in the atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll, while the Mutsu figured in one of Japan’s worst naval disasters when she blew up in Hiroshima Bay in June, 1943, with few survivors. This was Hiroshima’s major disaster until the advent of the first atom bomb.

A failure of Japanese radar equipment in October, 1944, caused the loss of two more battleships—the Fuso and Yamashiro—which were sunk by torpedo boats in Leyte Gulf. The Hiei and Kirishima, two of the major units of the fleet used in the attack on Pearl Harbour, were sunk off Guadalcanal as the tide of war turned. A submarine torpedoed the Kongo off Formosa in 1944, and in spring of last year the remainder of Japan’s capital ships—the Ise, Haruna, and Hyuga—were put out of commission by carrier-based attacks on Kure harbour.

Along with these three battleships, Kure harbour provides a final resting place for many more Japanese warships. These include the cruiser Aobe, one of the luckiest ships in the Japanese Navy. She was in almost every major naval engagement in the Pacific, war, was damaged time and time again, but invariably managed to escape. Carrier planes finally caught her in their strikes on Kure harbour, and she now lies with her stern under water in the smelly company of fishboats.

Kure dockyards have also been the mass grave for over 100 midget submarines, which have been buried under tons of debris in one of the great dock basins. In fact, Kure is the major graveyard; of the Japanese fleet, with Sasebo, Kobe, and Yokosuka each providing additional evidence of the fact that a large percentage of the Japanese fleet was smashed in its own backyard. Like bloated, rusty leeches against the blue-green of Sasabo’s magnificent harbour—once as “hush-lnush” a naval base as Kure—float three of the sadly dilapidated units of the Nipponese carrier fleet. Largest of the trio swinging at anchor in Ebisu Cove is the 19,000 ton Junyo, originally constructed as a liner for the Japanese Olympics. In the first battle of the Phillipine Sea, 56 aircraft left her flight deck and only one returned. The Kasagi and Ibuki which were never completed, float alongside. The only two serviceable carriers of the seven s-till afloat are the 17,500 ton Kasaragi and Honsho. At Kure two other carriers, the Kaiyo and -the Ryuho, are being scrapped. When (the immense task of repatriating thousands upon thousands of Japanese to their homeland is completed, the remaining vessels of the fleet will be scrapped unless some good use’ can be fauna for them. Meanwhile an amazing assortment of craft, ranging from a veteran cruiser of the Russoi-Japanese war to the most modern small ships, are engaged on bringing Japanese soldiers along the humiliating road back.