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Post by silentrunner on May 15, 2016 2:59:08 GMT
On this day 24 years ago, a JMSDF salvage team discovered the wreck of the American "large cruiser" USS Alaska 200 miles north of Okinawa. The discovery came 50 years after her loss in the Battle of the East China Sea, where the US Navy intercepted and destroyed a IJN force led by the battleship Yamato as it attempted to stop the American invasion of Okinawa.
During the battle, an 18-inch shell from Yamato penetrated Alaska's forward magazine, causing her to be engulfed in a massive explosion. Out of her 1,815-man crew, only 15 got out alive.
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Post by whiteshore on May 15, 2016 3:39:34 GMT
The Alaska was an utter waste of steel and shame it took 1,800 dead American sailors to tell the US Navy high command that it was a failure. BTW, the Battle of the East China Sea was also suicidal as the IJN expended all their major warships except for a few old light cruisers, the Hosho, and the Ise "Battlecarriers", which were kept in port and ironically, all of them survived the war, albeit in the case of the Ises, they were practically little more than floating batteries but Hyuga was able to limp into Bikini atoll unaided when it was expended in the nuclear test and Ise only had problems in the final leg of her final journey.
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Post by silentrunner on May 15, 2016 4:28:34 GMT
The Alaska was an utter waste of steel and shame it took 1,800 dead American sailors to tell the US Navy high command that it was a failure. BTW, the Battle of the East China Sea was also suicidal as the IJN expended all their major warships except for a few old light cruisers, the Hosho, and the Ise "Battlecarriers", which were kept in port and ironically, all of them survived the war, albeit in the case of the Ises, they were practically little more than floating batteries but Hyuga was able to limp into Bikini atoll unaided when it was expended in the nuclear test and Ise only had problems in the final leg of her final journey. Don't forget Mutsu, which survived the engagement with the American battleships by the skin of her teeth, though she was in such poor condition at the war's end that when the Americans attempted to claim her as a prize of war, they couldn't even get her boilers to run. She was eventually scrapped in port in Kure.
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Post by whiteshore on May 15, 2016 4:49:06 GMT
In addition, the aircraft carrier Katsuragi, the heavy cruiser Aoba, and the light cruisers Sakawa and Oyodo also barely survived the battle and IIRC were used as reparation transports and the cruisers were given over to the Nationalist Chinese and Oyodo and Aoba were eventually returned to Japan as museums in the mid-1970s by the ROC while Katsuragi was sold off to Brazil where it served until the late 1960s and was scrapped.
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Post by silentrunner on May 15, 2016 13:49:34 GMT
In addition, the aircraft carrier Katsuragi, the heavy cruiser Aoba, and the light cruisers Sakawa and Oyodo also barely survived the battle and IIRC were used as reparation transports and the cruisers were given over to the Nationalist Chinese and Oyodo and Aoba were eventually returned to Japan as museums in the mid-1970s by the ROC while Katsuragi was sold off to Brazil where it served until the late 1960s and was scrapped. Katsuragi was another fortunate ship. She was part of the decoy force led by the "battlecarrier" Shinano that lured TF 38's carriers away from the Yamato task force. But I don't know where you got the information that she was scrapped. In reality, Katsuragi, renamed Brasilia, was saved by the lobbying of Brazil's Japanese community and is now a museum ship in Rio De Janeiro.
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Post by whiteshore on May 15, 2016 14:00:05 GMT
Sorry about that, I mixed up the Brasilia with the Rio De Janeiro (ex-USS Saipan), and why isn't Sakawa a museum in Kure Bay like the Oyodo and Aoba? The reason is simple: The Chinese Communists sunk Sakawa with a lucky Il-2 Sturmovik hit to her magazine in mid-1949, IIRC.
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Post by silentrunner on May 15, 2016 19:41:44 GMT
One thing is for certain, the lucky hit on Alaska has resulted in a massively inflated reputation for Yamato. You get a lot of keyboard warriors claiming that she could take any American capital ship in a one-on-one fight and the only reason she went down in the East China Sea was because she was facing 10 battleships.
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Post by whiteshore on May 16, 2016 2:39:42 GMT
And it also resulted in the USS Guam and the USS Hawaii being sold off to Brazil and Chile respectably as soon as the war was over as the US Navy recognized that the Alaskas were utter wastes of steel due to Yamato's lucky hit on the Alaska and along with the Saipans and the Oregon City-class heavy cruisers, were immediately sold off to the ABC powers of Latin America where the USS Wright was sold off to Chile and became the Santiago while Argentina received the USS Oregon City, which was renamed the President Sarmiento and the USS Northampton and the USS Albany were sold off to Brazil where they became the Manaus and the Recife, finally, Chile recieved the USS Rochester, which became the Atacama. The same could also be said of the Worchesters, three of which were sold to Brazil while Argentina recieved the USS Roanoke.
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