The wreck of a battleship from 1942 has been found!

On the official profile of the research unit RV “Petrel” it was reported that the wreck of the Japanese battleship IJN “Hiei” was found. The ship was sunk on 14 November 1942, during the First Battle of Guadalcanal, thus becoming the first battleship of the Imperial Japanese Navy lost during World War II.

The wreck of the Japanese ship has been located near Savo Island in the Solomon Islands. In the information made available by the research team created by Paul Allen, working on the RV “Petrel”, we know that the “Hiei” is lying upside down for the day, at a depth of over 900 metres.

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In the night from 12 to 13 November, during the First Battle of Guadalcanal, IJN “Hiei” is seriously damaged by the American heavy cruiser USS “San Francisco” (CA-38). As a result of a faulty steering system, she quickly becomes an easy target for subsequent US Navy attacks.

During the next day the next air attacks are directed on the position of the immobilized unit. Unable to evacuate the ship to a safe base, in the evening of November, 14th, the Japanese destroyers hit the “Hiehi” and sent it to the bottom.

The keel for IJN “Hiei” was laid on 4 November 1911. In turn, already on 21 November 1912 the launching of the ship took place. Officially the ship entered service in the Imperial Navy of Great Japan on 4 August 1914. It was the second Kongō-class ship, and the first one built in Japan, in the Yokosuka Naval Shipyard.

In the interwar period, all four Kongō-class ships underwent extensive modernization. Due to the provisions of the London Treaty, the “Hiei” was seriously disarmed and converted into a training battleship with very little combat value.

After the withdrawal of Japan from the treaty, in 1937-40, the thorough modernization allowed to match the standards, which were already represented by the other ships of this class. As a result, from a line cruiser, in 1940 the IJN “Hiei” was transformed into a fast battleship.

Source: fb.com/rvpetrel, wikipedia.org.

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