It is more common than one might think that political changes and industrial dynamics overlap, giving rise to contradictory or at least paradoxical situations. To cite just two examples in the naval field, consider the cruiser USS Phoenix, survived Pearl Harbour and the Pacific War to be sunk by the British in the Falklands in 1982, where she participated as General Belgrano after being sold to Argentina. Again, the Moscow, launched at the Ukrainian shipyards in Mykolaiv in the 2022s and sunk by the Ukrainians themselves in XNUMX, while operating as the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
One hundred and twenty years earlier, in 1902, the Anglo-Japanese alliance was ratified which would have brought strategic advantages to London and political-industrial advantages to Tokyo, which within three years would have humiliated the Tsarist empire at Mukden and Tsushima. to the satisfaction of the British.
When Great War arrived in the Pacific theater, Japan sided with the Allies by sweeping up (and taking over) the territories administered by Berlin. It was in this scenario that British shipbuilding, at least in part, was put to the service of the Japanese fleet. MIKASA, flagship of the national hero Admiral Togo Heihachiro at the Battle of Tsushima, was launched at the Vickers shipyard in Barrow-in-Furness on the Irish Sea. Same birthplace as the Congo, which unlike its predecessor (a pre-dreadnought structurally antiquated and involved in some accidents) had a long operational life after being designed by Sir Thomas Thurston, a naval engineer and knight of the british empire.
Furthermore, the construction of the ship also had legal implications. The British Vickers and the German Siemens competed to bribe high-ranking Japanese officials to win the contract. The British won, but the explosion of the scandal led to the resignation of the government only a few months before Japan entered the war.
With all this, the Congo and the ships of the same class that would follow (Haruna, hiei e Kirishima) proved to be excellent for protection, mobility and firepower. But they never had the opportunity to measure themselves against their direct adversary, the German Pacific Squadron of Admiral Maximilian von Spee, because this was annihilated by the Royal Navy in the South Atlantic already in December 1914 while attempting to return to Germany. For all four years of the war, the Kongo therefore served to patrol and support Japanese operations in Asia, in those same waters that almost thirty years later they would again travel but in the camp of the Axis powers.
After the war, they also survived the limitations imposed by the Washington and London naval treaties, which imposed severe reductions in the military fleets of the major states. Japan was one of the least committed to respecting these constraints, especially in tonnage, and modernized and strengthened the Kongo precisely to circumvent the ban on building new battleships (as did the other contracting parties with varying degrees of success).
On the eve of the country's entry into World War II, as the carrier strike group approached Pearl Harbor, the Congo was part of the naval force sent to Malaya and Thailand in the South Pacific. Again, however, the opportunity to engage the enemy in battle was missed. On 10 December 1941, in what is perhaps the darkest day of the Royal Navy, the Force Z (HMS Battleship Prince of Wales and HMS cruiser Repulse) set sail from Singapore and was annihilated by Japanese aircraft taking off from occupied Indochina. A national trauma that symbolically marked the end of British rule in Asia.
She later took part in operations in the Philippines and towards Australia, then in the Indian Ocean. The so-called Indian Ocean Raid, between March and April 1942, ended with the largest retreat in British naval history, after the destruction of the aircraft carrier HMS Hermes and HMS cruisers Cornwall e Dorsetshire. Once again, however, all the glory went to the Japanese air force, further indicating that the age of the battleship was now over.
La Congo was not involved in the disaster of the Battle of Midway, because it was sent almost to the Arctic Circle to support operations in the Aleutians. A useless diversion, since the Japanese ciphers had been broken by US Navy intelligence.
At the end of 1942, together with her twin Haruna (photo), surprisingly achieved the most significant success the Japanese achieved during the Guadalcanal campaign, devastating Henderson Field with a night bombing raid. Due to the total disorganization of the Japanese forces in the area, however, the army did not take advantage of the opportunity for an assault that might have had some chance of success, losing the last opportunity to turn the tide of the fighting.
The naval battle in November then saw the end of the hiei destroyed by US aircraft, and of the Kirishima, sunk in a night engagement by the USS Washington. The first direct clash between battleships in which they were involved, thus ended with the destruction of the Japanese unit, outclassed by its more modern rival, equipped with radar direction for fire control.
After the evacuation from Guadalcanal, the whole of 1943 passed without any particular commitments and the Congo was sent back to Japan for modernization.
1944 saw the participation in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, alongside Admiral Ozawa's naval air forces. It was another disaster, with the loss of virtually all the aircraft employed so that the carriers became essentially useless. Despite the undeniable success, resulting in the occupation of the Mariana archipelago, the US command was not satisfied that the bulk of the Japanese battle force had escaped destruction. Thus began the obsession to destroy the remaining aircraft carriers still operational that would almost lead to the catastrophe at Leyte in October.
Aware that it was now impossible to reconstitute an efficient naval air group, the leaders in Tokyo decided to sacrifice the remaining aircraft carriers, and in particular the Zuikaku, the last Pearl Harbor veteran, using them as bait to lure the bulk of the US fleet away from the landing area at Leyte (Philippines) while the surface units would surprise the undefended transports in front of the beaches. Incredibly the plan came close to success, but Admiral Kurita Takeo – left without any information on the enemy's disposition and deceived by the desperate resistance of the few opposing forces he faced – decided to withdraw to save the heart of the battle fleet, which had suffered heavy losses anyway. On this occasion the Congo achieved his only ship-to-ship victory, sinking the destroyer USS Samuel B. Roberts in the Battle of the Samar Sea (one of four known collectively as Battle of Leyte).
It would be impossible to describe the development here, both sides made some very serious mistakes. The Americans had the almost incredible luck that Kurita did not want to push the attack to the end because he was convinced he did not have the forces to do so, while in reality the diversion of the decoy aircraft carriers had worked.
Also survived in Leyte, the Congo returned to Borneo only to be recalled to Japan in November. She would never have made it. Intercepted off Formosa by the submarine USS Sealion, was sunk on November 21.
The last surviving twin, the Haruna, was destroyed by an air raid while at anchor at Kure in July 1945, by which time her fate was entirely irrelevant.
The History of the IJN Congo allows us to highlight some particular aspects. The last Japanese battleship built in Great Britain, she never had the opportunity to demonstrate her full potential - in one case because the British fleet deprived her of any significant opponent, in the other because the Japanese air force deprived her of the British fleet.
From mid-1942 onwards the fighting was determined by the overwhelming American naval air force, which overshadowed the US Navy battleships and made the Japanese ones prey to be shot down one after the other. When, thanks to a series of fortunate circumstances, it found itself in front of the perfect targets in Leyte Gulf, confusion and uncertainty in the orders prevented the Japanese fleet from massacring the almost defenseless American ships there.
The ship designed by Sir Thomas Thurston met its end at the hands of a submarine, a perfect example of that treacherous vessel so different from the gigantic warships that Japanese naval commands still tended to favor. A legacy of a London-Tokyo bond that had long since faded, when it was sunk it also became the legacy of the era of large armored ships that were finding less and less space on the seas of the globe.
Photo: web / US Navy
