Kirishima

Kirishima (Japanese: 霧島) was one of four Kongō-class battlecruisers built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during the 1910s. Completed in 1915, the ship played minor roles in World War I and the Second Sino-Japanese War, but she was very active during the Pacific War. Kirishima patrolled on occasion off the Chinese coast during World War I, and helped with rescue efforts following the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake.

Starting in 1927, Kirishima's first reconstruction rebuilt her as a battleship, strengthening her armor and improving her speed. From 1934, a second reconstruction completely rebuilt her superstructure, upgraded her propulsion machinery, and equipped her with launch catapults for floatplanes. Now fast enough to accompany Japan's growing carrier fleet, she was reclassified as a fast battleship. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Kirishima acted primarily as a support vessel and troop transport, moving army troops to mainland China. On the eve of the Pacific War, she sailed as part of Vice-Admiral Chuichi Nagumo's Kido Butai as an escort for the six carriers that attacked Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941.

As part of the Third Battleship Division, Kirishima participated in many of the Imperial Japanese Navy's early actions in 1942, providing support for the invasion of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) and in the Indian Ocean raid from February to April 1942, during which she helped to sink the destroyer USS Edsall and the Dutch patrol ship Hoofdinspecteur Zeeman. During the Battle of Midway, she escorted Nagumo's four carriers, before redeploying to the Solomon Islands during the Battle of Guadalcanal. She escorted Japanese carrier fleets during the battles of the Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz Islands, before sailing as part of a bombardment force under Admiral Nobutake Kondō during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal.

On the evening of 13 November 1942, Kirishima engaged American cruisers and destroyers alongside her sister ship Hiei. On the night of 14/15 November, in one of only two battleship duels of the Pacific War, Kirishima badly damaged the American battleship USS South Dakota before being fatally wounded in turn by gunfire from the battleship USS Washington. Kirishima capsized and sank in the early morning on 15 November in Ironbottom Sound.