Japanese battleship Haruna

Haruna was a warship of the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War I and World War II. Designed by the British naval engineer George Thurston and named after Mount Haruna, she was the fourth and last battlecruiser of the Kongō class. She fought in almost every major naval action of the Pacific Theater during WWII. In 1945, Haruna was transferred to Kure Naval Base, where she was sunk by aircraft of Task Force 38.

About Japanese battleship Haruna in brief

Haruna was a warship of the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War I and World War II. Designed by the British naval engineer George Thurston and named after Mount Haruna, she was the fourth and last battlecruiser of the Kongō class. Haruna fought in almost every major naval action of the Pacific Theater during WWII. In 1945, Haruna was transferred to Kure Naval Base, where she was sunk by aircraft of Task Force 38 on 28 July 1945. Her main battery consisted of eight 14-in heavy-caliber main guns in four twin turrets. Each of her main guns could fire high-explosive or armor-piercing shells a maximum of 38,770 yd at a firing rate of two shells per minute. Her secondary battery originally sixteen 6 in guns in single casemates, eight 3-in submerged torpedo tubes, and eight 5-in dual-purpose guns. The 6-50 caliber gun was capable of firing between six and eight anti-aircraft and anti-ship shells, though the positioning of the guns on the ships made antiaircraft firing on Haruna impractical. She was the first vessel in the world to be equipped with 14 in guns. She and her sister ship Kirishima were the first two capital ships of the Japanese Navy to be built in private shipyards. The class was ordered in 1910 in the Japanese Emergency Naval Expansion Bill after the commissioning of HMS Invincible in 1908. The four Kongo-class battlecruisers were designed to match the naval capabilities of the other major powers at the time.

Their heavy armament and armor protection were greatly superior to those of any other Japanese capital ship afloat at theTime. In 1941, separate dyes were introduced for the four battleships,  Haruna’s armor was using black dye with 50-caliber shells of the Haruna-class battleship, and Haruna’s armor was also using black armor with black dye for the Haria-class Battleship. The ship was formally commissioned in 1915 on the same day as her sister vessel, Kirishama. She died in a collision with a cargo ship off the coast of Honshu, Japan, in 1945. She is one of the few Japanese vessels to have been sunk by a U.S. Navy aircraft during the Second World War, along with the battleship Kure and the battleships Kure-1 and Kure-2. The wreck of Haruna is the only known example of a Japanese battleship to be sunk by an American aircraft. The only other ship to have survived the war to be named after a mountain, was the Japanese cruiser Kure, which was sunk in 1945 by a British aircraft carrier, HMS Erin. The name Haruna translates to “Mount Haruna” in Japanese. The keel was laid down at Kobe by Kawasaki on 16 March 1912, with most of the parts used in her construction manufactured in Japan. The vessel was completed on 19 April 1915.

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