The Ships of Battlegroup: Japan Hiei (BB)

Displacement	31,700 tons	Belt Armor	8 inches
Overall Length	728.5 feet	Deck Armor	2.75 inches
Beam	102.3 feet	Main Turret Armor	9 inches
Speed	30.5 knots	Main Guns	8 × 14″

Laid down on March 16, 1912, launched on December 14, 1913 and commissioned on April 19, 1915, the ship carried a main armament of eight 14 inch main guns mounted two per turret; two superfiring centerline forward, one centerline aft and one centerline aft placed up one deck to allow it to fire over the other aft turret. Hiei was part of a four-ship battlecruiser class that had coal-fired turbine engines with oil-fired supplementary burners. Japan lacked experience in designing large warships at the time and wanted a "model" like the ones in the Royal Navy. Since Great Britain and Japan were close allies (the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902) at the time, the class was designed by Sir George Thurston, with the lead ship, the Kongo , built in Great Britain.

The remaining ships in the class, Haruna, Hiei and Kirishima, were all built in Japan. In common with all British battle cruisers, her armor was thin. The British Tiger battle cruiser was a close copy of the Japanese class but mounted 13.5 inch guns. The name "Hiei" refers to a mountain in Japan. As a result of the 1930 Washington Naval Treaty, Hiei was demilitarized in 1931. She was returned to service and modernized the same as her sisters from November 1936 until January 1940. The ship had torpedo bulges added, as had been done earlier to her sister ships. In addition, a new set of oil-fired turbines was installed that increased speed to 30.5 knots, protection improvements (the belt armor remained the same but deck armor was thickened) were made that increased displacement from 27,500 to 31,700 tons, a characteristically Japanese "pagoda" foremast was added and she was re-designated as a "fast battleship." Although these modernization changes, which were made to all four ships of the class, made them useful fast carrier escorts, the Kongo class lacked the armor protection to be considered real "fast battleships."

During World War II, the Hiei and her sisters were often called on to use their speed to accompany the fast carriers in operations. At Guadalcanal, the Hiei and all her sisters were also used in a surface role and sent down the "Slot" to bombard Henderson Field. This use of these vulnerable ships resulted in the disabling of Hiei by 50 crippling close-range cruiser 8 inch shell hits on the night of November 12–13, 1942 ("The Battle of Friday the Thirteenth"). Japanese superiority in night fighting and torpedoes were useless when the American cruisers and destroyers sailed between the Japanese ship lines at such close range that 8 inch cruiser shells from the San Francisco could pierce Hiei’s battlecruiser armor. American losses included the death of both admirals present, cruisers Atlanta and Juneau (including the five Sullivan brothers in her crew), four destroyers and many other ships damaged. Japanese losses were only two destroyers sunk and other ships damaged but the bombardment was cancelled and Hiei was among the seriously damaged. Unable to escape down the "Slot" as the sun rose, Hiei was lost on November 13 to continuous air attacks from the "Cactus" Air Force on Guadalcanal and planes from the Enterprise . There she remains to this day, with the other rusting hulks in "Ironbottom Sound".

For other nation’s "battlecruisers" that served in World War II, see: Dunkerque, Gneisenau, Guam, Repulse and Scharnhorst .

For other World War One ships extensively modernized between the wars, see: Andrea Doria, Caio Duilio, Conte di Cavour, Giulio Cesare and Repulse .

For a further discussion of what happened to the battleships of World War One, see the Introduction to these articles.