Chokai

All you want to know about Chokai

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Chōkai
Career (Japan)
Name: Chōkai
Ordered: March 26, 1928
Laid down: April 5, 1931
Launched: June 30, 1932
Commissioned: 1932
Struck: December 20, 1944
Fate: Scuttled after gunfire/bomb
damage in Battle off Samar,
October 25, 1944
General characteristics
Displacement: 15,781 tons
Length: 661 ft (203.76 m)
Beam: 68 ft (18.999 m)
Draught: 20 ft 9 in (6.3 m)
Propulsion: 130,000 hp
Speed: 35.5 knots (65.7 km/h)
Range: 8,000 nautical miles (15,000 km)
@ 14 knots (26 km/h)
Complement: 773
Armament: ten 8-inch (203 mm) guns,
four 4.7-inch (120 mm) guns,
up to 66 25 mm AA guns,
eight 24-inch torpedo tubes


Chōkai (Japanese: ちょうかい Kanji: 鳥海) was a Takao-class heavy cruiser, armed with ten 8" guns, four 4.7" guns, eight torpedo tubes and assorted anti-aircraft guns. Chōkai was designed with the Imperial Japanese Navy strategy of the great "Decisive Battle" in mind, and built in 1932 by Mitsubishi's shipyard in Nagasaki.

Contents

Operational history

At the start of the Pacific War, the Chōkai supported the invasion of Malaya and participated in the pursuit of the Royal Navy's battleship Force Z. During January and February 1942, the Chōkai was involved in operations to seize the oil-rich Dutch East Indies and the island of Borneo. Steaming near Cape St. Jacques, the Chōkai struck a reef, sustaining hull damage on 22 February 1943. On the 27th, she reached Singapore for repairs.

After repairs, the Chōkai was once again assigned to support role in an invasion, this time the landings at Iri, Sumatra, and the invasion of the Andaman Islands and the seizure of Port Blair a few days later. Afterwards, the Chōkai wen to Mergui, Burma.

On 1 April 1942, the Chōkai left Mergui to participate in Operation C, a raid on merchant shipping in the Indian Ocean. First, the Chōkai torpedoed and sank the American freighter Bienville, and later on, the British steamship Ganges on 6 April. With her role in the operation successfully concluded, the Chōkai returned to Yokosuka on 22 April 1942.

The Guadalcanal campaign

By mid-July 1942, the Chōkai was the new flagship of Vice Admiral Mikawa Gunichi and his Eighth Fleet. She proceeded towards Rabaul. On 7 August 1942, with Guadalcanal having been invaded by the Americans, the Chōkai headed for the Guadalcanal waters, with Vice Admiral Mikawa aboard. In the battle of Savo Island Mikawa's squadron of heavy cruisers inflicted a devastating defeat on an Allied squadron, sinking four cruisers (three American and one Australian) and damaging other ships. However, the Chōkai sustained several hits from the USS Quincy and the USS Astoria, blowing off one of her turrets and killing 34 men. The Chōkai returned to Rabaul for temporary repairs. For the rest of the Solomon Islands campaign, the Chōkai would fight in an assortment night battles with the U.S. Navy, sustaining varied, but mostly minor, damage.

Cruiser Chōkai

Relieved as the Eighth Fleet flagship shortly after the final evacuation of Guadalcanal, the Chōkai headed back to Yokosuka on 20 February 1943. Tasked with various minor duties for the remainder of 1943 and first half of 1944, the Chōkai was made the flagship of the Cruiser Division Four ("CruDiv 4") on 3 August 1944. She survived a harrowing submarine attack on 23 October 1944, becoming the only undamaged ship of CruDiv 4.

Sunk in the Battle off Samar

The Chōkai was then transferred to Cruiser Division Five, where she survived another attack on 24 October 1944, this time by aircraft. On the morning of 25 October 25, the Chōkai, as a part of a large war fleet of IJN battleships, cruisers, and destroyers engaged an American force of escort carriers, destroyers, and destroyer escorts in the Battle off Samar, the Philippines, in part of huge the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Taken under 5-inch (127 mm) gunfire by the destroyers and destroyer escorts, the Chōkai was hit amidships, on the starboard side, most likely by the carrier USS Kalinin Bay. A secondary explosion caused by the armed torpedoes on her decks knocked out her engines and her rudder. The Chōkai dropped out of formation.

Within minutes, an American warplane dropped a 500-lb (227 kg) bomb onto the Chōkai's forward machinery room. Fires began to rage around the Chōkai, and she went dead in the water. Later on that day, she was scuttled by torpedoes from the Japanese destroyer Fujinami, which also rescued some of her crew. Two days later the Fujinami was itself sunk with the loss of all hands, including the survivors from Chōkai, which means that Chōkai was arguably one of the largest vessels to be sunk with all hands during World War II.

Commanding Officers

Chief Equipping Officer - Capt. Taichi Miki - 5 April 1931 - 1 December 1931

Chief Equipping Officer - Capt. Boshiro Hosogaya - 1 December 1931 - 30 June 1932

Capt. Boshiro Hosogaya - 30 June 1932 - 1 December 1932

Capt. Umataro Tanimoto - 1 December 1932 - 15 November 1933

Capt. Shiro Koike - 15 November 1933 - 15 November 1934

Capt. Gunichi Mikawa - 15 November 1934 - 15 November 1935

Capt. Atsushi Kasuga - 15 November 1935 - 1 December 1936

Capt. Takeo Okumoto - 1 December 1936 - 12 July 1937

Capt. Aritomo Goto - 12 July 1937 - 15 November 1938

Capt. Zenshiro Hoshina - 15 November 1938 - 1 November 1939

Capt. Takero Koda - 1 November 1939 - 19 October 1940

Capt. Seishichi Watanabe - 19 October 1940 - 25 April 1942

Capt. Mikio Hayakawa - 25 April 1942 - 1 March 1943

Capt. Kosaku Aruga - 1 March 1943 - 6 June 1944

Capt. / RADM* Jo Tanaka - 6 June 1944 - 25 October 1944 (KIA; survived sinking of ship, but KIA when rescue DD Fujinami sunk by air attack.)

References

Books

  • D'Albas, Andrieu (1965). Death of a Navy: Japanese Naval Action in World War II. Devin-Adair Pub. ISBN 081595302X. 
  • Dull, Paul S. (1978). A Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1941-1945. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-097-1. 
  • Lacroix, Eric; Linton Wells (1997). Japanese Cruisers of the Pacific War. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0870213113. 

External links

See also

Notes

v • d • e
Takao-class cruiser

Takao | Maya | Chōkai | Atago
List of ships of the Japanese Navy
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_cruiser_Ch%C5%8Dkai"

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