Wreck of HIJMS Yaku

 Second World War 1939-1945, military, shipwreck, frigate (ship)

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HIJMS Yaku was an Ukuru Class Escort Ship built for the Imperial Japanese Navy, laid down at the Uraga Drydock Co in June 1944 and commissioned into service in October of the same year. Spending a month operating off Kure for crew training in anti-submarine and anti-aircraft combat strategy the Yaku was formally assigned to the General Escort Command’s First Surface Escort Division in December 1944 and began escorting vital merchant ship convoys.

Operating primarily between the Japanese bases at Moji and Singapore screening oil tankers and rubber-laden merchantmen from the former Dutch East Indies towards Japan, the Yaku formed part of an increasingly thin line of defense for Japan’s merchant fleet, which by 1944 had been ravaged by American Submarines exploiting a lack of effective convoy system and capable convoy escort vessels. After seeing her first two convoys to their destinations without loss, the crew of Yaku were reminded of the danger posed by their enemy when their third convoy in was stalked and attacked by an American Wolfpack, with the loss of all but one of the merchant ships under her care. After seeing the remaining ship to Singapore on February 8th, 1945, the Yaku and her crew refueled and reprovisioned before being assigned to Japan-bound convoy HI-88-H which consisted of three valuable oil tankers. Departing on the morning of February 16th, the convoy moved along the Malayan and Indochina Coast without incident, with available air cover and foul weather assisting their unhindered movements for the first six days of their journey. Fortunes changed on the morning of February 22nd however, as the American Submarine USS Becuna (SS-319) sighted and attacked the ships, claiming one tanker before escaping a lengthy effort by the Yaku and her fellow escorts to depth charge her.

With the likelihood that more US Submarines were now enroute to intercept her convoy, the Yaku’s Commander ordered the ships into Nha Trang Bay, Indochina for the night of the 22nd and requested air cover be routed to his location to assist the ships departure the following morning. Unfortunately for the Yaku and the ships of her convoy, the air cover was not available and the three ships attempted a breakout before dawn, hoping to elude their enemy in the darkness. Snaking between the coastal islands as they made their way Northward along the coast, Yaku stood on the Easternmost position of her convoy and used her sonar to sweep the deeper waters offshore for any signs of the enemy, however had found none by midday as the convoy neared Cape Varella. At roughly the same time, the USS Hammerhead (SS-364) was slowly approaching the sea lanes off the Cape after her onboard radar had picked up the convoy, and as the tankers came into view through her periscope her Captain ordered all four of his bow torpedo tubes loaded. As he moved to line up his shot, the Yaku unwittingly steamed directly into his firing line, so he seized the opportunity and sent all four torpedoes hurtling towards the Japanese Frigate.

Unaware they were in any danger, the crew of the Yaku made no attempts to evade the onrushing torpedoes and as a result when the first of three shots to hit the ship did so just beneath her bridge, in her engine room and at the turn of her hull, dozens of men in their berths or in the mess room for the midday meal were killed, injured or trapped. The Yaku’s hull took fatal damage from the three blasts and as she settled back to the surface her broken keel allowed her hull to wrench apart into three sections. With catastrophic flooding entering the ship from multiple areas, the Yaku quickly broke apart and sank at this location shortly after noon on February 23rd, 1945, taking 132 of her crew with her to the bottom.

www.combinedfleet.com/Yaku_t.htm