Battleship Kirishima Specs and History

Japanese Battleship Kirishima

The Imperial Japanese Navy Kongo class Battleships were all completed around the time of World War I. The four ships in this class were the Kongo, Kirishima, Hiei and Haruna and they were modernized in the early to mid 1930s. These ships had a main armament of eight 14 inch guns in four double turrets. The secondary guns were sixteen 6 inch guns (although two were removed during the modernization to give them fourteen during WW2). The Kirishima carried a complement of approximately 1220 men. The Kirishima was assigned to escort the Japanese aircraft carriers for the Pearl Harbor Raid with other surface ships and sailed with the Midway battle force in which all four IJN carriers were lost. The Kirishima was involved in numerous battles around Guadalcanal including bombarding Henderson Field. However, it was during one of her surface engagements on the night of November 14/15 that she was reduced to a burning wreck by the United States Battleships South Dakota and Washington. She sank the next day off of Savo Island with her survivors being rescued by Japanese destroyers.