Wreck of HIJMS Mokuto (目斗) | Second World War 1939-1945, shipwreck

 Second World War 1939-1945, shipwreck

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Laid down on November 5th, 1944 at the Hitachi Zosen Co. Ltd’s Shipyard in Sakurajima, HIJMS Mokuto was the 8th member of the Hiburi Class of Escort Ships built for the Imperial Japanese Navy, and after her commissioning on February 19th, 1945 she was assigned to the Kure Guard Unit.

After training and crew familiarization, the Mokuto and her crew began wartime operations in March 1945 with anti-submarine patrols in Tosa Bay, hunting the ever-growing menace of American submarines in Japanese home waters. By late March, word was received by the Mokuto that American planes were conducting aerial mining of Japanese waters, and that a large-scale mining had taken place in the Shimonoseki Strait on March 27th and numerous merchant vessels had been sunk or damaged. Steaming at once to accompany and screen minesweepers as they worked to clear shipping lanes, the Mokuto and her crew arrived onscene and began intensive anti-mine operations.

With the Shimonoseki Strait littered with dozens of acoustic, magnetic and pressure mines, the Mokuto and her fellow escorts and minesweepers operated in incredibly dangerous conditions for several days clearing the handiwork of a few B-29's of the 6th Bomb Group, 313th Bomb Wing. Though every precaution was taken to maintain a lookout for floating or subsurface mines, while screening a minesweeper on the morning of April 4th, 1945 the Mokuto was rocked by a tremendous explosion on her Starboard bow as she struck a 2000lb magnetic mine at 0905hrs. The explosion blew out a large portion of the Mokuto's bow and killed 27 of her crew outright and within minutes the young ship was settling bow-first. Damage control efforts by the green crew were unable to check the progressive flooding onboard and by 0915 the abandon ship order was passed to her surviving crew. Staying afloat long enough to allow her crew to be rescued, the Mokuto gave out and sank bow-first at this location at 0920hrs on April 15th, 1945.


www.combinedfleet.com/Mokuto_t.htm