By Zachary Smyers
HRNM Educator
February 6, 2019, was a day of discovery when the Japanese fast battleship HIJMS Hiei was located in the Pacific Ocean. Explorers aboard the research vessel RV Petrel discovered the Hiei northwest of Savo Island in the Solomon Islands chain. The Hiei is now lying upside down over 3,000 feet beneath the waves. Despite being sunk 77 years ago, the images captured by the RV Petrel show that the ship is in relatively decent shape. The glass port holes are still intact along with the 5-inch gun mounts, and the shaft and blades of its propellers.
Construction of the Hiei began on November 4, 1911. Part of the Kongo class of battlecruisers, the Hiei was actually designed by British naval architect George Thurston. The Hiei was 728 feet long, had a beam of 101 feet, and a draft of 31 feet. It weighed in at 36,600 long tons and was propelled by steam turbines with four shafts capable of producing a speed of 30 knots.
The battlecruiser Hiei departing Yokosuka Naval Arsenal, Japan, in 1914. (Wikimedia Commons) |
The Hiei first saw service in World War I deploying from Sasebo, Japan in October of 1914. The Hiei was tasked with supporting Japanese troops during the siege of Tsingtao, China, but was recalled on October 17. In 1916, she was dispatched to patrol the coast of China along with her sister ships Kirishima and Haruna. The Hiei fulfilled this assignment until the end of the war.
This halftone illustration from the Department of Naval Intelligence files shows the general design of the Kongo-class battleships.. (Library of Congress via Naval History and Heritage Command) |
Following the Battle of Midway, the Hiei participated in the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, the Battle of Santa Cruz in August, and the First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. That battle, known by the Japanese as the Third Battle of the Solomon Sea, which took place in the first hours of November 13, 1942, would be its last. Fighting at night and engaging American ships at point blank range, the Hiei crippled the USS Atlanta (CL 51), and disabled two American destroyers (one of which was the USS Laffey, which eventually sunk). Due to the close range, the Hiei received multiple hits from American 5-inch guns which injured the Hiei’s commanding officer as well as killed the chief of staff.
Each force being unaware of the others' exact location, the lead destroyers of both the Imperial Japanese Navy's Battleship Division 11 and the American task force (TG 67.4) hurtled towards one another in the dark morning of November 13 at a combined speed of over 40 knots, and in the words of Director of Naval History Sam Cox, the Americans' line-ahead formation "pierced into the center of the dispersed Japanese formation like a javelin before blunting on the hard rock that was the battleship Hiei." (Wikimedia Commons) |
Eventually the Hiei’s port quarter was punctured by shells from the USS San Francisco (CA 38), eventually flooding its aft steering compartment. This in turn left the Hiei crippled and the ship could only turn to starboard. The next day the Hiei was repeatedly attacked by Navy as well as Army bombers. Since the ship was now only capable of making five knots and could only turn to starboard, it became an easy target for the attacking aircraft. After receiving multiple torpedo and bomb hits, the crew was eventually ordered to abandon ship.
“Despite an order from the Combined Fleet directing the Kirishima to take the Hiei in tow,” wrote Rear Admiral Raizo Tanaka, commander of the famed “Tokyo Express,” destroyer squadron tasked with resupplying Japanese forces on Guadalcanal, “this effort was not made, and instead the flaming battleship was intentionally sunk.”
“Despite an order from the Combined Fleet directing the Kirishima to take the Hiei in tow,” wrote Rear Admiral Raizo Tanaka, commander of the famed “Tokyo Express,” destroyer squadron tasked with resupplying Japanese forces on Guadalcanal, “this effort was not made, and instead the flaming battleship was intentionally sunk.”
Although most of its crew was rescued, the Hiei finally disappeared beneath the waves on November 14, 1942, taking 188 men from the crew to the bottom, where their resting place would remain undiscovered for more than three quarters of a century.
The Hiei was the first Japanese battleship sunk by US forces during the fighting in the Pacific. The discovery of the Hiei by the RV Petrel is significant, because modern technologies in both sonar and deep submergence vehicles make it possible to see first-hand the effects of time on a vessel lost at sea. Also, this discovery perhaps provides some closure for those who had family members serving on the Hiei as well as illustrates the ferocity of combat in the Pacific during World War II.
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