The Ships of Brawling Battleships Steel: Japan Battleship Ise

Laid down on May 10, 1915, launched on November 12, 1916 and commissioned on December 15 1917, Ise carried a main armament of twelve 14 inch main guns mounted two per turret; two centerline superfiring forward, two centerline superfiring aft and two centerline superfiring amidships that could fire to both sides. These guns were superior to the 14 inch guns installed in the earlier Kongo and Fuso classes and the superfiring arrangement of the amidships turrets allowed for superior internal arrangements and protection compared to the earlier and otherwise very similar Fuso class. The Ise was half of the two ship Hyuga battleship class. The class was propelled by coal-fired turbine engines that had oil-fired supplementary burners. The name “Ise” refers to the location of a shrine to an ancestor of the Japanese emperor. Ise went into the yards three times between 1929 and 1937 for modernization which, among other changes made her turbines all oil-burners, added torpedo bulges and increased her speed slightly to 25 knots. During the early stages of World War II, Ise sortied a number of times, notably for the Battle of Midway, but avoided real combat. Because they were too slow to accompany the fast carriers and, like the similar Fuso class, the Hyuga class battleships were denied an offensive mission of even shore bombardment and held back as a “fleet in being,” they were of little practical use–the wrong ships in the wrong war. In response to Japan’s heavy 1942 losses in aircraft carriers (one at the Battle of the Coral Sea, four at the Battle of Midway and one at the Battle of the Eastern Solomons), from September 1942 through September 1943, she and her sister Hyuga were converted into “hermaphrodite” battleships by replacing their two aft turrets with a short flight deck, a hanger under it with room for 22 dive bombers or seaplanes, an elevator, two catapults and radar sets. Born of desperation, this conversion proved to be an incredibly stupid idea and, after all that work, no aircraft were ever assigned to either ship. Ise was damaged by bombs during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, bombed again in Kure Harbor on March 19, 1945 and finally sunk, along with her sister ship Hyuga, in shallow water at Kure by aircraft from the American aircraft carrier Lexington on July 28, 1945. After salvage, she was sold for scrap in 1946.

See other battleships: Kawachi, Texas, Royal Oak