Japanese cruiser Agano
Sasebo , October 1942
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History | |
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Name | Agano |
Namesake | Agano River |
Ordered | 1939 Fiscal Year |
Builder | Sasebo Naval Arsenal |
Laid down | 18 June 1940 |
Launched | 22 October 1941 |
Commissioned | 31 October 1942 |
Stricken | 31 March 1944 |
Fate | Sunk by USS Skate, 15 February 1944 |
General characteristics (as built) | |
Class and type | Agano-class light cruiser |
Displacement | |
Length | 174.1 m (571 ft 2 in) ( o/a ) |
Beam | 15.2 m (49 ft 10 in) |
Draft | 5.63 m (18 ft 6 in) |
Installed power |
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Propulsion | 4 shafts; 4 geared steam turbine sets |
Speed | 35 knots (65 km/h; 40 mph) |
Range | 6,300 nmi (11,700 km; 7,200 mi) at 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph) |
Complement | 51 officers, 649 sailors; 57 and 669 when serving as a flagship |
Sensors and processing systems |
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Armament |
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Armor | |
Aircraft carried | 2 × floatplanes |
Aviation facilities | 1 × aircraft catapult |
Agano (阿賀野) was the lead ship of her class of four light cruisers built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during World War II. Completed in 1942, she escorted a troop convoy to New Guinea in December. In early 1943 the ship participated in Operation Ke, the evacuation of Japanese troops from Guadalcanal. Six months later Agano transported troops and supplies to New Guinea and she played a role in the Battle of Empress Augusta Bay in early November where she damaged the destroyer USS Spence. A few weeks later, the ship was badly damaged by American airstrikes and she sailed for Truk under her own power the following day. While en route, Agano was torpedoed by an American submarine and had to be towed to her destination. After several months of repairs, she left for Japan, but was intercepted and sunk by another American submarine in February 1944. Most of her crew was rescued by her escorting destroyer, but that ship was sunk with the loss of most of her crew and all of Agano's survivors by an American airstrike the following day.
Design and description
The Agano-class ships were intended to replace the obsolete light cruisers built in the 1910s and 1920s as
The Agano class had four geared
Armament and protection
The main armament of the Agano class consisted of six
The propulsion machinery was protected by a waterline armor belt 60 millimeters (2.4 in) thick with 20-millimeter (0.8 in) transverse bulkheads fore and aft of the propulsion machinery and a middle deck of the same thickness. The ships' magazines were enclosed in armored boxes with 55-millimeter (2.2 in) sides, 20-millimeter tops and 20- or 25-millimeter ends.[7]
Construction and career
Agano, named for the
Agano escorted the forces covering the evacuation of Japanese troops from Guadalcanal Island (Operation KE) from 31 January to 9 February 1943, during which 11,700 Japanese soldiers were removed.
Agano departed for Truk on 9 July escorting the
Battle of Empress Augusta Bay
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b7/Bougainville_campaign_1945.jpg/110px-Bougainville_campaign_1945.jpg)
The ship, now the flagship of Rear Admiral Morikazu Osugi, departed Truk on 30 October for Rabaul just as the Americans were preparing to invade Bougainville Island on 1 November. The Japanese attempted to disrupt the landings on the night of 1/2 November with a force of two heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, including Agano, and six destroyers under the command of Rear Admiral Sentarō Ōmori. The Japanese ships had been spotted by American aircraft around 21:00 and Task Force 39, which consisted of four light cruisers and eight destroyers, was ordered to intercept them.[12]
Omori arranged his ships in three staggered columns; the outer ones were each led by one of the light cruisers followed by three destroyers and the two heavy cruisers were in the middle. Osugi in Agano led the southernmost column, which trailed the main body. One of the cruiser floatplanes claimed to have spotted a cruiser and three destroyers 20 nmi (37 km; 23 mi) south at 01:20 and Ōmori ordered his ships to make a 180-degree maneuver intended to buy time for the pilot to investigate Empress Augusta Bay for American shipping. Less than an hour later, he reported that American transports crowded the bay; the pilot had actually spotted three minelayers and their destroyer escort that were leaving the bay. Omori ordered his ships to reverse course at 02:25. In the darkness, and with most ships lacking radar, the Japanese formation of three columns was disordered by the maneuvers and commanders lost track of where their ships were in relation to each other.[13]
American radar picked up the Japanese at a range of 36,000 yards (33,000 m) at 02:27 and Rear Admiral Aaron Merrill, commander of the task force, ordered his destroyers to attack with their torpedoes while his cruisers stood off to avoid Japanese torpedoes and would open fire when the torpedoes struck their targets to maintain the element of surprise. The leading division of four destroyers fired a salvo of 25 torpedoes by 02:46, but they were detected as they turned away and the Japanese turned into the torpedoes to makes themselves smaller targets. Their maneuvering caused Merrill to believe that his ships had been spotted and the first of his cruisers opened fire at the light cruiser Sendai, leading the northernmost column, three minutes later.[14]
The abrupt maneuvers by the Japanese ships, both to evade the American torpedoes and to fire their own, led to one collision and several near misses early in the battle. Most of the American cruisers were firing at the heavy cruisers in the center column by 03:05 and Omori turned away in a 270-degree turn that cut across the path of Agano's column. The heavy cruiser Myōkō rammed and crippled the destroyer Hatsukaze while the heavy cruiser Haguro nearly struck the destroyer Wakatsuki. Incorrectly believing that he had sunk three of the American cruisers, Omori ordered his ships to cease fire at 03:29 and turned away to disengage four minutes later. Osugi, who had kept his ships on the disengaged side of the heavy cruisers after the collision, fired a parting shot of eight torpedoes at 03:40, all of which missed.[15]
For her part of the engagement, Agano hit the destroyer USS Spence with a 6-inch (152 mm) shell which landed below the waterline, causing minor flooding. However, the damage was not significant as the shell failed to explode.[16]
After returning to Rabaul, Agano was near-missed by a bomb when the aircraft carriers
Sinking
Temporary repairs by the repair ship
As Oite was approaching Truk the following morning, the destroyer was sunk by
Notes
- ^ a b Whitley, p. 186
- ^ Lacroix & Wells, p. 591
- ^ Jentschura, Jung & Mickel, p. 111
- ^ Stille, pp. 35–36
- ^ Lacroix & Wells, pp. 571–72, 579–580
- ^ Lacroix & Wells, pp. 579–581
- ^ Lacroix & Wells, pp. 563–564
- ^ Lacroix & Wells, p. 562
- ^ Lacroix & Wells, pp. 593–594
- ^ a b c d Hackett & Kingsepp
- ^ Lacroix & Wells, p. 594
- ^ O'Hara, pp. 206–207
- ^ O'Hara, pp. 207, 209–210
- ^ O'Hara, pp. 210–211
- ^ O'Hara, pp. 211–214
- ^ "Spence (DD-512)". NHHC. Retrieved 9 May 2024.
- ^ Lacroix & Wells, p. 595
- ^ Lacroix & Wells, pp. 595–596
References
- Jentschura, Hansgeorg; Jung, Dieter & Mickel, Peter (1977). Warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1869–1945. Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute. ISBN 0-87021-893-X.
- Lacroix, Eric & ISBN 0-87021-311-3.
- O'Hara, Vincent P. (2007). The U.S. Navy Against the Axis: Surface Combat 1941-1945. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-59114-650-6.
- Stille, Mark (2012). Imperial Japanese Navy Light Cruisers 1941-45. Botley, UK: Osprey. ISBN 978-1-84908-562-5.
- ISBN 1-55750-141-6.