Japanese cruiser Kinugasa

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Career

Ordered:	1924 fiscal year
Laid down:	January 23 1924
Launched:	October 24 1926
Commissioned:	September 30 1927
Fate:	Sunk November 14 1942
Struck:	December 15 1942
General Characteristics
Displacement:	10,822 tons
Length:	595 ft (181.4 m)
Beam:	57 ft 9 in (17.6 m)
Draft:	18 ft 7 in (5.7 m)
Speed:	33 knots (61 km/h)
Complement:	625
Aircraft:	1
Armament:	6 × 8 in (203 mm) guns, up to 42 × 25 mm AA guns, 8 × 24 in torpedo tubes

Kinugasa(衣笠) was an Aoba-class heavy cruiser in the Imperial Japanese Navy, named after a mountain in Kanagawa prefecture. Kinugasa was built at Kawasaki Shipyards in Kobe, Japan, and commissioned in September 1927.

1 History
2 See also
3 References

[edit] History

Her early service was as flagship of the Fifth Squadron (Sentai), and she operated for virtually her entire career with that unit and the Sixth and Seventh Squadrons. In 1928, she became the first Japanese combat ship to carry an aircraft catapult. Kinugasa served off China in 1928 and 1929 and on several occasions during the 1930s. Placed in reserve in September 1937, she was extensively modernized and not recommissioned until the end of October 1940.

Kinugasa was assigned to Cruiser Division 6 (CruDiv6), under Aritomo Goto during the year leading up to the start of the Pacific War. In December, 1941, the war's first month, as part of CruDiv 6, she took part in the seizure of the U.S. outposts at Guam and Wake Island. She participated in the Battle of the Coral Sea in May, 1942 and in the heavy fighting to retake Guadalcanal later in the year.

During the initial phase of the Guadalcanal campaign, she took part in the Battle of Savo Island on 9 August, 1942 in which her gunfire contributed to the sinking of three U.S. and one Australian cruisers. On October 13, 1942 in the Battle of Cape Esperance, CruDiv6 was surprised by a force of U.S. cruisers and destroyers under U.S. Rear Admiral Norman Scott. The Japanese cruiser Furutaka was sunk and Japanese cruiser Aoba was heavily damaged with Admiral Goto onboard mortally wounded. Kinugasa responded by turning in the opposite direction, which hid her from the U.S. ships until she was ready to respond with her own gunfire. Kinugasa then opened fire and inflicted heavy damage on the U.S. cruiser Boise and moderate damage to the U.S. cruiser Salt Lake City before escaping up "The Slot" back to the Japanese naval base in the Shortland Islands.

In the early morning of November 14, 1942, during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, Kinugasa, along with three other Japanese cruisers, shelled Henderson Field on Guadalcanal. While withdrawing from that bombardment after daybreak the same day, Kinugasa was sunk SW of Rendova Island at 09°06′S, 157°14′E by aircraft based at Henderson Field and from the aircraft carrier Enterprise (CV-6). Of her crew, 511 were killed, including her captain and executive officer.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] Books

D'Albas, Andrieu (1965). Death of a Navy: Japanese Naval Action in World War II. Devin-Adair Pub. ISBN 0-8159-5302-X.
Dull, Paul S. (1978). A Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1941–1945. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-097-1.
Lacroix, Eric; Linton Wells (1997). Japanese Cruisers of the Pacific War. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-311-3.