The crew of the R/V Petrel are in Ironbottom Sound again, and they have found and surveyed two of the largest ships lost in the fearsome battles there, including one that had not been found before.
The Japanese fast battleships Kirishima and Hiei were lost in late 1942, and Hiei was the first Japanese battleship to be sunk during WWII. Massive damage from the vicious close-range gun battle on the night of 13-14 of November in the First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, left Hiei helpless with a damaged rudder and air attacks the next day put an end to the old battleship. Probably.
A photo of Hiei taken from a B-17, the trail of oil is very visible as is the effect of the jammed rudder.
Hiei lies inverted in 900 meters of water, around four nautical miles away from Kirishima, and both are around 20 nautical miles from the island of Guadalcanal itself.
This drawing is of Hiei in 1942, and it is close enough for major features to be pointed out using it.
Now, we should remember Hiei from the wreck of the USS Laffey, since Hiei was the ship that took the brunt of Laffey's fire in the brawl. While the destroyer didn't escape from the battle, the damage she inflicted to the superstructure of Hiei played a role in the battleships sinking later in the battle.
The sonar image shows how much of the bow is missing, 70 meters would include both of the forward main battery turrets and possibly parts of the superstructure. A large debris field is located about 500 meters away from the hull.
Using different sonar arrays gives different views of the wreck, the two below are viewed from Hiei's port to starboard and starboard to port respectively. The shadows give some idea of what the profile of the hull looks like, including the screws and the rudders which cast notable shadows.
This is where the bow broke off on the starboard side. Based on the sonar images, Hiei didn't break cleanly amidships, instead, it looks like she twisted and has more hull left on the port side. The bilge keel can be clearly seen, which gives a bit of an idea on how far back on the hull this is.
A box of 25 mm shells for one of Hiei's anti-aircraft guns lays on the inverted hull, but there isn't much to actually see on the bottom of a ship's hull. The 25 mm that the Japanese used was a poor weapon, but it was the largest automatic AA gun they developed and fielded during WWII. Its many failings include its small magazine size, horrendous vibration issues, intense muzzle blast, poor gunsights, and slow traverse and elevation.
A triple 25 mm mount on Guadalcanal, taken in 1942. The magazines are one of the major limitations as they have to be replaced unlike the constant open feed mechanisms on guns like the 40 mm Bofors.
Despite the violence of the battle and later attacks, Hiei still has several portholes that are mostly intact.
This shot shows some of the damage from the battle, as well as another intact looking porthole, and degaussing wire on the lower right side of the frame. I think that this might be on the port side, showing what was underneath the Number One or Number Two turret. There were portholes in the area below the casemate, and the port side is more intact than the starboard side. The sort of ridge above is probably part of the bulge that ran most of the length of the ship.
Hiei had four of these 40 caliber Type 89 12.7 cm Gun mounts for anti-aircraft duty. It had a short range and low ceiling because of its low muzzle velocity, but it had a high rate of fire. These look to be the unshielded type of Type 89 mounts.
This land mounting is an example of what they looked like, though Hiei wouldn't have had the same sort of sheld.
These two photos are of the same portion of the superstructure, located in the large debris field about 500 meters away from the hull. It is either a base for a searchlight or a rangefinder of some kind.
Just aft of the pagoda mast is what looks like a similar structure as what is in the debris field.
According to the Facebook page, they suspect this to be the base of a mast of some kind. There isn't enough visible to know for sure though.
The Kongou class had four screws, and these are Hiei's port side screws and propeller shafts. The propeller, and presumably the shaft, on the left has slid down the shaft to the shaft bearing, in service it was much further aft.
One of the things that doomed Hiei, the crippling of her steering can be seen on the wreck today. During the battle, after the forward line of American destroyers had their pass, the USS San Fransisco and Hiei traded blows at as short a range as 2,500 yards, with neither coming out of it well. San Fransisco's bridge was shot through, killing Rear Admiral Callaghan and three of his staff and mortally wounding Captain Cassin Young. But San Fransisco struck back, with two 8'' shells penetrating and opening a 2-meter wide hole in the starboard side around 0154. The sea rushed in, helped by the pressure from the ship's speed, and shorted out the power steering.
I have not found a painting of USS San Fransisco at the battle, but I do have this image of Laffey and Hiei duking it out at close range.
Admiral Abe canceled the planned bombardment of Henderson Field and ordered his flagship back north, steering with Hiei's engines despite the loss of most communications. Still afire, Hiei limped north at a reduced speed.
Hiei's crew valiantly took to the flooding manual steering compartment until they were forced to abandon it around 0600. Without their efforts, the rudders jammed into forcing Hiei into a hard starboard turn as the sun rose, well within the range of aircraft from Henderson, other airbases, and the USS Enterprise.
The day was a mix of heavy air attacks and gradually successful damage control, at 1430 Abe logged "Manual steering had been made possible, the fire at the foremast had been placed under control, and the pumping out of the steering room was succeeding"
At 1435 six Avengers from Enterprise made another attack and struck with two torpedo hits, one of which was on the starboard stern. This hit which reflooded the steering room, and the other which flooded the starboard engines. An hour later Abe sent a written order to Hiei's captain Nishida to abandon ship.
Almost 1,300 men were taken off the dying battleship, even though a final air attack by nine dive bombers. At 1800 on Abe's orders captain Nishida was removed from the ship, and the order to scuttle was given then rescinded. One hour later the destroyers which had taken Hiei's crew off departed, leaving Hiei alone. She was listing around 15 degrees to starboard and her quarter-deck was nearly awash. At 0100 the next day, Abe returned with the destroyer Yukikaze and despite searching for half an hour, didn't find his former flagship. During those six hours, Hiei had gone to the bottom of the ocean with 188 of her crew.
The ultimate question of what sank Hiei is still in the air, as the released images don't show a significant amount of the damage that is known to have occurred. It isn't even clear if she was scuttled after all with opened seacocks, or if that would be needed after the heavy damage Hiei had sustained.
Hopefully, the photos and videos from the Petrel will lay these questions to rest, and perhaps even give some closure to the families of the 188 men who perished aboard their ship during that battle more than 70 years ago.
The loss of Hiei and his decision to withdraw spelled the end for Admiral Hiroaki Abe's career, as he was relieved of command by Admiral Yamamoto, and then forced to resign from the navy in March 1943. He passed on February 9th, 1949 at the age of 59 years. His younger brother Toshio Abe was also an officer, and he went down with his command, the carrier Shinano, when it was sunk in 1944.
An ignoble end for an officer with more than 30 years of service, but perhaps history will be kinder to him and his decisions than his superior officers were.
Notes:
There is an off chance that this is Kirishima and the other battleship wreck is Hiei, but I personally doubt that since the damage that is seen is more consistent with what Hiei suffered instead of the 16'' shells that Kirishima was hit with.
Sources:
R/V Petrel Facebook
http://www.combinedfleet.com/atully03.htm
https://ww2db.com/person_bio.php?person_id=503
http://www.combinedfleet.com/hiei2.htm
https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/s/san-francisco-ii.html
https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/l/laffey-i.html
The Japanese fast battleships Kirishima and Hiei were lost in late 1942, and Hiei was the first Japanese battleship to be sunk during WWII. Massive damage from the vicious close-range gun battle on the night of 13-14 of November in the First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, left Hiei helpless with a damaged rudder and air attacks the next day put an end to the old battleship. Probably.
Hiei lies inverted in 900 meters of water, around four nautical miles away from Kirishima, and both are around 20 nautical miles from the island of Guadalcanal itself.
Now, we should remember Hiei from the wreck of the USS Laffey, since Hiei was the ship that took the brunt of Laffey's fire in the brawl. While the destroyer didn't escape from the battle, the damage she inflicted to the superstructure of Hiei played a role in the battleships sinking later in the battle.
The sonar image shows how much of the bow is missing, 70 meters would include both of the forward main battery turrets and possibly parts of the superstructure. A large debris field is located about 500 meters away from the hull.
Using different sonar arrays gives different views of the wreck, the two below are viewed from Hiei's port to starboard and starboard to port respectively. The shadows give some idea of what the profile of the hull looks like, including the screws and the rudders which cast notable shadows.
This is where the bow broke off on the starboard side. Based on the sonar images, Hiei didn't break cleanly amidships, instead, it looks like she twisted and has more hull left on the port side. The bilge keel can be clearly seen, which gives a bit of an idea on how far back on the hull this is.
A box of 25 mm shells for one of Hiei's anti-aircraft guns lays on the inverted hull, but there isn't much to actually see on the bottom of a ship's hull. The 25 mm that the Japanese used was a poor weapon, but it was the largest automatic AA gun they developed and fielded during WWII. Its many failings include its small magazine size, horrendous vibration issues, intense muzzle blast, poor gunsights, and slow traverse and elevation.
Despite the violence of the battle and later attacks, Hiei still has several portholes that are mostly intact.
This shot shows some of the damage from the battle, as well as another intact looking porthole, and degaussing wire on the lower right side of the frame. I think that this might be on the port side, showing what was underneath the Number One or Number Two turret. There were portholes in the area below the casemate, and the port side is more intact than the starboard side. The sort of ridge above is probably part of the bulge that ran most of the length of the ship.
Hiei had four of these 40 caliber Type 89 12.7 cm Gun mounts for anti-aircraft duty. It had a short range and low ceiling because of its low muzzle velocity, but it had a high rate of fire. These look to be the unshielded type of Type 89 mounts.
This land mounting is an example of what they looked like, though Hiei wouldn't have had the same sort of sheld.
These two photos are of the same portion of the superstructure, located in the large debris field about 500 meters away from the hull. It is either a base for a searchlight or a rangefinder of some kind.
Just aft of the pagoda mast is what looks like a similar structure as what is in the debris field.
According to the Facebook page, they suspect this to be the base of a mast of some kind. There isn't enough visible to know for sure though.
The Kongou class had four screws, and these are Hiei's port side screws and propeller shafts. The propeller, and presumably the shaft, on the left has slid down the shaft to the shaft bearing, in service it was much further aft.
One of the things that doomed Hiei, the crippling of her steering can be seen on the wreck today. During the battle, after the forward line of American destroyers had their pass, the USS San Fransisco and Hiei traded blows at as short a range as 2,500 yards, with neither coming out of it well. San Fransisco's bridge was shot through, killing Rear Admiral Callaghan and three of his staff and mortally wounding Captain Cassin Young. But San Fransisco struck back, with two 8'' shells penetrating and opening a 2-meter wide hole in the starboard side around 0154. The sea rushed in, helped by the pressure from the ship's speed, and shorted out the power steering.
Admiral Abe canceled the planned bombardment of Henderson Field and ordered his flagship back north, steering with Hiei's engines despite the loss of most communications. Still afire, Hiei limped north at a reduced speed.
Hiei's crew valiantly took to the flooding manual steering compartment until they were forced to abandon it around 0600. Without their efforts, the rudders jammed into forcing Hiei into a hard starboard turn as the sun rose, well within the range of aircraft from Henderson, other airbases, and the USS Enterprise.
The day was a mix of heavy air attacks and gradually successful damage control, at 1430 Abe logged "Manual steering had been made possible, the fire at the foremast had been placed under control, and the pumping out of the steering room was succeeding"
At 1435 six Avengers from Enterprise made another attack and struck with two torpedo hits, one of which was on the starboard stern. This hit which reflooded the steering room, and the other which flooded the starboard engines. An hour later Abe sent a written order to Hiei's captain Nishida to abandon ship.
Almost 1,300 men were taken off the dying battleship, even though a final air attack by nine dive bombers. At 1800 on Abe's orders captain Nishida was removed from the ship, and the order to scuttle was given then rescinded. One hour later the destroyers which had taken Hiei's crew off departed, leaving Hiei alone. She was listing around 15 degrees to starboard and her quarter-deck was nearly awash. At 0100 the next day, Abe returned with the destroyer Yukikaze and despite searching for half an hour, didn't find his former flagship. During those six hours, Hiei had gone to the bottom of the ocean with 188 of her crew.
The ultimate question of what sank Hiei is still in the air, as the released images don't show a significant amount of the damage that is known to have occurred. It isn't even clear if she was scuttled after all with opened seacocks, or if that would be needed after the heavy damage Hiei had sustained.
Hopefully, the photos and videos from the Petrel will lay these questions to rest, and perhaps even give some closure to the families of the 188 men who perished aboard their ship during that battle more than 70 years ago.
The loss of Hiei and his decision to withdraw spelled the end for Admiral Hiroaki Abe's career, as he was relieved of command by Admiral Yamamoto, and then forced to resign from the navy in March 1943. He passed on February 9th, 1949 at the age of 59 years. His younger brother Toshio Abe was also an officer, and he went down with his command, the carrier Shinano, when it was sunk in 1944.
An ignoble end for an officer with more than 30 years of service, but perhaps history will be kinder to him and his decisions than his superior officers were.
Notes:
There is an off chance that this is Kirishima and the other battleship wreck is Hiei, but I personally doubt that since the damage that is seen is more consistent with what Hiei suffered instead of the 16'' shells that Kirishima was hit with.
Sources:
R/V Petrel Facebook
http://www.combinedfleet.com/atully03.htm
https://ww2db.com/person_bio.php?person_id=503
http://www.combinedfleet.com/hiei2.htm
https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/s/san-francisco-ii.html
https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/l/laffey-i.html
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