Wreck of HIJMS Natori (名取) | Second World War 1939-1945, military, navy, shipwreck, cruiser

 Second World War 1939-1945, military, navy, shipwreck, cruiser

HIJMS Natori was the fourth member of the Nagara Class of Light Cruisers built for the Imperial Japanese Navy, laid down at Mitsubishi's Nagasaki Shipyard in December 1920 and commissioned into service in September 1922. Assigned primarily to patrols in the Sea of Japan along the Japanese and Chinese coasts as relations between both nations deteriorated into outright conflict, Natori and her crew eventually shifted to Taiwan in 1938 and began patrolling the waters of French Indochina following the fall of France to Nazi Germany.

With Japan’s empire expanding aggressively across the Pacific and clearly placing the nation on an unavoidable path towards war with United States, Natori and her crew were reassigned to the role of Flagship for Destroyer Squadron Five in the IJN Third Fleet in November 1941, a role Natori was specifically designed to fill. Standing out of Mako as Japanese aircraft launched the Surprise Attack on Pearl Harbor, Natori arrived off the coast of Luzon and provided gunfire support as elements of the IJA's 48th Infantry Division went ashore to capture Vigan Airfield. Attacked by USAAF B-17’s as she screened her landing force, the Natori took a near-miss that opened up some of her hull plating, but remained onscene until the invasion completed before withdrawing to Formosa for repairs that kept her out of action for much of December. Reassigned to the No. 2 Escort Unit upon the completion of her repairs, Natori began escorting large troopship convoys throughout French Indochina and the Dutch East Indies into February 1942, culminating with her role in the Invasion of Java and the subsequent Battle of Sunda Strait, wherein Natori contributed several torpedoes in the total decimation of USS Houston (CA-30) and HMAS Perth (D29) in a violent night battle that all but ended organized Allied Naval resistance in the Southern Pacific and Indian Oceans.

Returning to Japan for a period of overhaul and full repairs to her battle damage suffered off Luzon, Natori returned to the former Dutch East Indies and conducted extensive patrols, escorts and mop-up operations throughout the newest territory of Japan’s empire for the balance of 1942 and into 1943 without major incident. Natori’s routine wartime patrols were interrupted on January 9th 1943 while she was steaming off Ambon and was sighted and attacked by the USS Tautog (SS-199), which succeeded in hitting the Light Cruiser with a single torpedo in her Stern that carried away the rearmost 40ft of the ship and both her rudders. Though unable to properly steer, Natori’s crew kept her underway and fighting long enough for the ship to reach the relative safety of Ambon harbor, where she was anchored and under repair as a single USAAF B-24 bomber attacked her on the 21st, near-missing the ship with a 500lb bomb that opened her hull plating and flooded her #2 Boiler room. Forced out of Ambon, Natori limped from port to port receiving temporary repairs before finally reaching Japan in June of 1943, where she spent much of the next year under an extensive overhaul and upgrade.

Emerging from the yard in April 1944 equipped with air-search radar, hydrophones and a greatly increased anti-aircraft armament, Natori was assigned as Flagship of Destroyer Squadron 3 in the Central Pacific Fleet and resumed her convoy escort duties primarily between Japan and the Philippines and amongst the Philippine Islands themselves through the Summer on 1944. Following duty as a Guardship at Davao and a brief refit at Cavite, Natori and her crew were attached to Fast Transport No. 3 and ordered to escort the reinforcement-laden ship to Palau, then under heavy American attack. Threading their way East through the San Bernadino Strait and into the open ocean shortly before sundown August 17th, the two ships went into line-Astern formation and made their best speed as night fell.

Early the following morning, the Natori and her charge were picked up by the surface radar of the USS Hardhead (SS-365), a patrolling American Submarine, at 0200hrs roughly 200 miles East of Samar. Quickly moving through the darkness to outflank the two enemy ships, the Captain of the Hardhead positioned his boat to the South of the two ships, turned his bow into their path and waited for the still-unaware vessels to come within range of his torpedoes. Aboard Natori, the crew were likely unaware of the American Submarine’s presence, as her air-search radar could not detect surface threats and her high speed likely meant her sonar operators could not distinguish the sounds of the Submarine’s screws from their own ships’ or the rushing water passing over her hydrophones. The first indication that either Natori or Fast Transport No. 3 were in any danger came at 0240hrs, when one of five torpedoes fired by Hardhead slammed into Natori’s Port Side at her #1 boiler room and detonated, blowing a large hole in the side of the ship and immediately flooding the boiler room and the adjacent engine room and leaving the ship dead in the water.

Immediately detaching the vulnerable Transport to continue onward, Natori’s Captain sent damage control crews below to relight the ship’s boilers and contain flooding, but no sooner had initial repairs begun than another salvo of two torpedoes slammed into the ship on her Starboard side at 0330hrs. Now severely damaged and shipping enormous amounts of water from both sides of the ship, Natori’s crew nevertheless managed to relight at least one of her boilers and raise enough steam to get the ship back underway and heading West for the Philippines by 0530hrs. Struggling to maintain headway for the next two hours, the battered ship began to encounter increasing ocean swells, putting tremendous pressure on her severely weakened hull and eventually causing her deck and hull plating to buckle and give way.

With the ship clearly losing her battle to stay afloat Natori’s Captain ordered her engines secured and the ship abandoned at approximately 0725hrs, however before the majority of her crew could get topside to liferafts the Cruiser’s keel gave way and the ship quickly broke into two pieces. Floating apart in the rising seas for only a few moments, both sections of the ship quickly capsized, flooded and sank at this location at 0730hrs on August 18th, 1944, spilling topside crew into the sea and taking 330 men with her to the bottom.

www.combinedfleet.com/natori_t.htm