Heavy Cruiser Ashigara

Ashigara (足柄) was the fourth and final ship of the Myoko-class heavy cruisers, laid down at Kawasaki Shipyard in Kobe on 11 April 1925, launched on 22 April 1928, and commissioned on 20 August 1929. Named after Mount Ashigara in Kanagawa/Shizuoka Prefecture.

Ashigara participated in the Japanese invasion of the Netherlands East Indies, the Second Battle of the Java Sea (1 March 1942, in which she helped sink the destroyer HMS Encounter), and subsequent operations throughout Southeast Asia and the Pacific. In 1937 she made a notable goodwill visit to Germany.

By mid-1945, Allied forces were closing in on the Japanese garrison in Java. On 7 June 1945, Ashigara departed Batavia (now Jakarta) with approximately 1,600 troops aboard and the destroyer Kamikaze as escort, heading for Singapore. On 8 June, in the Bangka Strait between Sumatra and Bangka Island, the British submarine HMS Trenchant (Commander Arthur Hezlet) detected the force and attacked. Trenchant fired eight torpedoes at a range of about 4,700 yards; five found their mark. Ashigara was hit along her starboard side, capsized, and sank at about 12:39 at coordinates 01°59′S 104°56′E. Kamikaze and local vessels rescued 853 of her crew and about 400 soldiers; more than 1,200 soldiers and about 100 crewmen were lost.