Wreck of first Japanese warship lost in Second World War found off Solomon Islands
US researchers have confirmed that a wreck discovered off the Solomon Islands last year is the Imperial Japanese Navy battleship Hiei, the first Japanese warship lost in the Second World War.
A previously uncharted wreck was located by the Tokyo-based Asian-Pacific Remembrance Honouring Association in February last year, but the organisation lacked the technology to examine the debris field, which lies at depths of as much as 3,200 feet, and confirm the identity of the ship.
A survey of the site was taken on by Vulcan Inc., the Seattle-based philanthropic organisation that was set up in 1986 by Paul Allen, the joint founder of Microsoft Corp.
Underwater craft remotely controlled from the R/V Petrel explored the wreck in late January, revealing the warship’s 6-inch guns in the debris field, crates of anti-aircraft rounds and portholes that are gradually being swallowed up by encroaching rust.
The images also show a large breach in the hull that it sustained during the November 1942 First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal with US Navy warships and aircraft.
NHK, Japan’s national broadcaster, quoted the head of the Yamato Museum, in the port city of Kure, as saying that the images indicate that as much as one-third of the Hiei’s hull appears to be missing, suggesting that an explosion within the vessel’s magazine may have ultimately sealed her fate.
“This discovery shows the tragedy of war and I believe that it also serves to remind people that war is real, not a story”, Kazushige Todaka said.
The Hiei was designed by George Thurston, a renowned British naval architect, as the second of the Japanese Navy’s four Kongo-class battlecruisers. Laid down at the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal in 1911 and commissioned four years later, Hiei was one of the most heavily armed warships in the world at the time.
The vessel saw service off China during the First World War before being mothballed. Hiei was called back into service as Japan prepared for war in 1937 and underwent extensive modification to upgrade her to a battleship.
The Hiei escorted the Japanese aircraft carriers that carried out the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, bringing the US into the conflict, and saw action at the Battle of Midway six months later. The Hiei also served as a raider against British interests in the Indian Ocean after the fall of Singapore and in March 1942 attacked shipping and naval installations in Sri Lanka.
Ordered to support the Japanese Army’s efforts to advance south through the Solomon Islands and to threaten Australia, the warship was badly damaged in an encounter with US units off Guadalcanal and was under tow when it was again attacked by US bombers and the order was given to abandon ship.
The vessel apparently drifted from its last confirmed position - which has made confirming its final position difficult - before finally sinking with the loss of 188 of her 1,360 crew.
“Hiei was crippled by a shell from the USS San Francisco on the 13th, which disabled the steering gear”, the crew of the R/V Petrel said in a Facebook post on Sunday. “For the next 24 hours, it was attacked by multiple sorties of torpedo, dive and B-17 bombers.
“Hiei sank sometime in the evening with a loss of 188 of her crew. Hiei now lies upside down in 900 plus metres of water Northwest of Savo Island”.
