Musashi (1942)

The Musashi (武蔵 , ''Musashi''^?) was a battleship of the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. She was the second of the Yamato class and along with her sister ship Yamato, she was the heaviest and most heavily armed battleship ever built thanks to her displacement of 72,800 tons fully loaded and her nine 460 mm guns.

Named after the former Japanese province of Musashi, the ship was laid down on 29 March 1938 and formally delivered on 5 August 1942, at which time she was assigned to the 1st Battleship Division alongside to her sister Yamato, the Nagato and the Mutsu. From February 11, 1943, she served as the flagship of the Combined Fleet and was He kept moving between the naval bases of Truk, Kure and Brunei, in response to American air attacks on Japanese bases.

During his last months of service he increased his anti-aircraft weapons and was present in the Battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944 as part of Vice Admiral Jisaburō Ozawa's 1st Mobile Fleet. However, she was unable to enter combat as she did not make contact with the enemy surface units. Four months later, during the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea and as part of the Central Force of the 2nd Fleet of Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita, the Musashi was sunk after a severe punishment of 19 torpedoes and 17 bombs at 7:36 p.m. on October 24. Of her 2,399 crew members, 1,023 died and 1,376 survived.

Design and construction

The Musashi was the second Yamato-class battleship, designed by the Imperial Japanese Navy in 1937. Like her sister ship, she was built for being able to combat several enemy ships simultaneously, a versatility to compensate for the Empire of Japan's inability to match the naval production capacity of the United States Navy and American shipyards. Displacing more than 70,000 tons, Japan hoped that the firepower of the Musashi and her sister ship could serve as a counterweight to American industrial might.

Taking into account the enormous mass projected for the Musashi, the slipway for its construction was reinforced, the nearby workshops were expanded and two large floating cranes were purpose-built. The keel of the battleship She was laid down on March 29, 1938 at the Mitsubishi shipyard in Nagasaki with the designation "Battleship No. 2". The construction process was hidden from foreign eyes with strategically located warehouses and large blinds made of hemp and weighing 408 tons. The deception was so successful that the United States consulate, located on the other side of the bay where the Musashi was being built, did not know of its existence for the whole process.

The launching of the battleship presented its particularities. The boat's launch platform, four meters wide and made up of nine 44cm planks of Douglas fir wood joined together, took two years to assemble due to the difficulty of drilling screw holes through four meters of new wood. The problem of moving and stopping the enormous hull once it was inside the narrow port of Nagasaki was solved by placing 570 tons of heavy chains divided equally between both sides of the hull to create slip resistance in the water. Finally, the launching, like the construction, had to be hidden from prying eyes, for which, among other things, a simulated air attack on the city was carried out to keep all the people inside. their homes. The Musashi was successfully launched by the side-slide method on November 1, 1940, although the entry of its great mass into the water produced a tsunami of more than a meter high that spread across the harbor and adjacent rivers, flooding homes and capsizing small fishing boats. The battleship was fitted out at nearby Sasebo with Captain Kaoru Arima assigned as its Chief Equipment Officer.

Towards the end of the refit, modifications were made to its interior amenities to be used as the flagship of the Commander in Chief of the Combined Fleet, including those of its bridge and captain's cabin. These alterations, along with improvements in the armor of the secondary battery, delayed the completion and delivery of the ship for sea trials by two months, until August 1942.

Weapons

The main battery of the Musashi was composed of nine 460 mm guns, the largest caliber of naval artillery ever shipped. Each gun measured 21.13 m, weighed 147.3 tons and was capable of fire high-explosive or armor-piercing projectiles up to 42 km away. Its projectiles were less heavy than those of British cannons of similar caliber from the First World War. The guns and their turrets were built at the Kure Naval Arsenal and transported to Nagasaki on the freighter Kashino, which had been built expressly for this purpose.

Its secondary battery included twelve 155 mm guns mounted in four triple turrets - one forward, one aft and two towards the center - and twelve 127 mm guns in six twin mounts - three on each side of the battleship. In addition, she carried 24 25 mm anti-aircraft guns, mainly distributed amidships. When she was refitted in 1944, the configuration of the secondary battery changed to six 155 mm guns, twenty-four 127 mm guns, and 130 anti-aircraft guns. 25 mm, in preparation for naval combat in the South Pacific. Like her sister ship, Musashi was equipped with a hydrophone in the bow bulb and at the end of 1943 she was equipped with two type 21-Go-air radars (with a range of 100 km) mounted on the crow's nest rangefinders, four detectors type E-27 radio wave/radar (range 300 km), two type 13-Go, air-to-surface radars (range 100 km) on the inverted tripod mast and two dual type 22-Go general purpose radars (range of 35 km, known as tubas) one on each side of the bridge.

Service History

On August 5, 1942 the Musashi was commissioned in Nagasaki with Arima Kaoru as captain, and that same day she joined the Yamato, the Nagato and the Mutsu in the 1st Armored Division. Throughout the month of September it was equipped with its secondary battery, consisting of twelve 127 mm guns, thirty-six 25 mm guns and four 13.2 mm anti-aircraft machine guns, in addition of additional radar equipment. Throughout October and November the Musashi carried out its sea trials and gunnery practices near Kure. In December 1942, after several maneuvers with aircraft of the aircraft carrier Zuikaku, the battleship was declared operational.

Flagship of the Combined Fleet

On January 18, 1943, the Musashi left Kure for the Truk Islands, where it arrived four days later. On February 11, she replaced her sister ship Yamato as the flagship of the Combined Fleet commanded by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. On April 1, Yamamoto left the Musashi to fly to the city of Rabaul, on the island of New Britain, and personally direct Operation I-Gō, a Japanese air offensive in the Solomon Islands. Fifteen days later, and thanks to the secret Ultra codes deciphered By the intelligence services of the Allies, American P-38 Lightning fighters caused Yamamoto's death by shooting down the plane in which he was flying from New Britain to Ballale, on the island of Bougainville. On April 23, Admiral Yamamoto's ashes were taken away to Truk and arranged in his cabin aboard the Musashi, where other officers of the Combined Fleet visited him and paid their respects.

On 17 May, in response to American attacks on Attu Island, Musashi, along with two light aircraft carriers, nine destroyers, and two cruisers, was deployed to the North Pacific, but They did not establish contact with US forces. The battleship then traveled to Japan to transport Yamamoto's ashes to Kure on May 23, where she left them in preparation for a formal state funeral. Immediately afterward the ship joined a large naval force in counterattacking the Americans at Attu. However, the island fell before the Japanese force could intervene, so the counterattack was canceled and the Musashi returned to Japan.

On June 24, while undergoing overhaul and repairs at the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal, the Musashi was visited by Emperor Hirohito and other high-ranking naval officers. Transferred to Kure on July 1, that same day the battleship entered dry dock, where it left on the 8th with improved fire control and radar. After several transfers between different bases in the Japanese archipelago, the Musashi left for Truk on July 31 and reached its destination in six days.

On September 18, he left Truk accompanied by three other battleships to respond to the American raids on Eniwetok and Brown Islands. Seven days later the fleet returned to Truk without having contacted enemy units. In October, as a result of suspicions of an American attack on Wake Island, Musashi led a large fleet under the command of Admiral Mineichi Koga and consisting of three fast aircraft carriers, six battleships and eleven cruisers that attempted intercept American aircraft carriers. As there was no contact, the fleet returned to Truk on October 26. The Musashi remained in Truk for the remainder of 1943. As her former captain was promoted, Captain Asakura Bunji took command of the battleship on December 7.

Latest operations and sinking

The Musashi was identified on February 4 by an American aerial reconnaissance in the waters of Truk along with 50 other ships, it remained in that port until February 10, 1944, Mineichi Koga received information from Japanese intelligence ordered his early withdrawal in prevention of a probable major enemy air-naval attack and he embarked on a trip to Yokosuka along with three smaller vessels. On February 24, she left Yokosuka with two specialized army battalions and their ammunition on board bound for Palau. On the same day she left Japan, the Musashi battle group encountered a typhoon that caused most of the cargo stored on the deck of the battleship to be lost. He arrived in Palau on February 29, at whose base he remained for exactly one month, since on March 29 he left the island in the middle of darkness to prevent attacks. However, almost immediately after departure the Musashi and its escorts were attacked by the American submarine USS Tunny, which fired six torpedoes at the battleship. The The battleship's escorts spotted the wakes of the torpedoes and five of them were avoided, but the sixth hit near the bow of the Musashi, causing the hydrophone compartment to flood and killing eighteen crew members.

On April 3, the battleship entered the Kure Naval Arsenal, where it was repaired and updated between the 10th and 22nd of the same month. It received a new radar, rails for depth charges and an increase in its anti-aircraft capabilities. By the time it left dry dock, Musashi's secondary battery consisted of six 155 mm guns, twenty-four 127 mm guns, one hundred thirty 25 mm and four 13.2 mm machine guns.

In May 1944 the ship left Kure in the direction of Okinawa and then sailed towards Tawi-Tawi together with the Japanese Second Fleet under the command of Vice Admiral Jisaburō Ozawa. On June 10, it left Tawi-Tawi for Biak with the intention of counterattacking the American invasion of the island, but two days later, when news of the American attacks on Saipan reached Ozawa, the Second Fleet diverted in the direction of the Mariana Islands. During the Battle of the Philippine Sea the Musashi was in charge of escorting fast aircraft carriers of the Second Fleet, but after the disastrous Japanese defeat — the battle was baptized by the Americans as the < i>Great Mariana Turkey Hunt, as the Japanese lost 450 aircraft and two aircraft carriers—the Second Fleet returned to its homeland. On July 10, the Musashi raised anchor in Okinawa to go to Singapore in the company of her sister ship Yamato.

On October 18, the Musashi joined the Japanese main fleet in Brunei in preparation for Operation Sho-1, the planned counterattack to the American landing on the island of Leyte. The Japanese plan sought to have Ozawa's carrier forces draw the American carrier fleets north of Leyte and thus allow Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita's Central Force to penetrate Leyte and destroy the enemy's landed forces. With this objective, five battleships, including the Musashi, and ten heavy cruisers left Brunei for the Philippines on October 20.

Shortly after the departure of the Japanese force from Brunei a pair of American submarines torpedoed and sank two of Kurita's heavy cruisers, including his flagship Atago, forcing the vice admiral, who survived the disaster, to move his flag to the Yamato. On October 24, sailing through the Sibuyan Sea, Kurita's Central Force fell under a major American air attack in five waves launched from aircraft carriers. At the beginning of the attacks the American pilots, mainly from the aircraft carriers USS Essex, Franklin and Intrepid, were able to focus on taking advantage of the weakness of the Musashi's armor near its bow, severely damaging the battleship in the first three raids and forcing it to reduce its speed at 10 knots (19 km/h). When it seemed evident that the battleship could no longer withstand further damage, its captain, Rear Admiral Toshihira Inoguchi, attempted to beach it on a nearby island. Despite his attempt, the Musashi sank at 19:36 after receiving enormous punishment: seventeen bombs and nineteen torpedoes, followed by a huge underwater explosion. Of a crew of 2,399 men, 1,023 died. The survivors were rescued by Japanese destroyers several hours later.

Discovery of the wreck

In March 2015, American billionaire Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft with Bill Gates, and his team of researchers aboard the research yacht Octopus located the ship's bow, at a depth of one kilometer in the sea. of Sibuyan, in the center of the Philippine archipelago. In a statement on his website, Allen stated that the discovery occurred after an eight-year search, supported at the documentary level by four countries and using advanced technology to probe the seabed. The difficulty in finding the Japanese battleship lay in the belief that she had sunk in one piece and the inaccurate information given by the crew of the destroyer Kiyoshimo about the place of her sinking, which is added the abrupt topography of the seabed. The Musashi was found at a depth of 1900 m at the bottom of a steep slope of an underwater volcano. The virtual reconstruction of the remains by a team of Japanese experts with the videos obtained showed that the Musashi suffered a punishment much greater than that endured by his twin. A two-hour documentary video released in 2015 by the Paul Allen Foundation shows the remains of the Musashi arranged on the seabed in a manner quite similar to those of its twin, the Yamato. i> but distributed over a greater radius of 250 m.