Wreck of HIJMS Katsuriki (葛城)

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

Laid down in 1916 at the Kure Navy Yard as the sole member of her class of Minelayers, HIJMS Katsuriki entered service with the Imperial Japanese Navy in early 1917 under the name Katsuriki Maru and promptly began type training for her designed role of rigging and laying offensive and defensive minefields. Less than three years into her service life, the Katsuriki was formally renamed without her “Maru” title and began to see increased service as a hydrographic survey vessel in addition to her practice Minelaying work, and by the 1930’s she had seen almost all of her Minelaying gear removed in favor of sounding instruments.

Operating as a member of the IJN Fourth Fleet’s Survey and Patrol Division out of Kwajalein Atoll up to and after the outbreak of war with the United States, the Katsuriki returned to Japan for overhaul before being reassigned to the First Southern Expeditionary Fleet at Singapore in March 1942. Remaining stationed at Singapore for the next two years, the Katsuriki and her crews conducted their mission of surveying the uncharted waters around the myriad of islands along the Malacca Straits, coast of Burma and former Dutch East Indies through the end of summer in 1944. By this point in the war, Japan’s steady losses of both merchant ships and convoy escorts began to alter the Katsuriki’s mission, as the elderly vessel began to ship more anti-submarine armaments and see increased duty as a short-range convoy escort for older and slower-moving ships.

While operating off the Philippine Islands in mid-September 1944, Katsuriki received orders to escort the Hospital Ship Takasago Maru to Manila on the 20th, and after linking up with her charge off Lingayen in the early morning of the 21st she began her screen of the Maru to the mouth of Manila Bay. As the two ships made their way South along the Luzon Coast, both of their sizeable smoke plumes caught the attention of lookouts aboard the USS Haddo (SS-255), an American Submarine operating on lifeguard duty for Task Force 38 pilots striking targets across Luzon. Easily identifying the brightly painted red crosses on the Takasago Maru’s white hull, the Haddo’s Skipper shifted his focus to the Hospital Ship’s small escort ship as he began to trail the formation shortly after 1200hrs. Unaware of the presence of an enemy Submarine, the crew aboard the Katsuriki continued their leisurely escort of their charge to their pre-designated disengagement point off Manila Bay, where the two ships parted company shortly after 1300hrs. Stoking her boilers and raising steam in preparation to begin her solo voyage to the waters off Palawan the Katsuriki turned to seaward and sailed westward, her crew unaware that the Haddo was still in pursuit.

Well after darkness fell over the westbound and slow-moving Katsuriki, the Haddo surfaced and went to her flank speed to chase down and move ahead of the still-unaware Japanese vessel. Moving into a firing position well ahead of the Katsuriki by 2120hrs, Haddo’s crew loaded all six of her bow torpedoes and watched their radar screen as it showed the enemy vessel closing in on their position. With their target only 2,900 yards distant at 2143hrs, the Haddo fired all six of her bow tubes into the path of the Katsuriki, observing two large explosions from the ship at 2145hrs. Standing well off as large fires and several large explosions continued to light the night sky, the Haddo’s crew watch the Katsuriki’s radar image disappear from their screens at 2151hrs at this location, after which they closed in and attempted to rescue survivors. Finding approximately 40 survivors amongst the wreckage of the sunken vessel, the efforts of Haddo’s crew to rescue the Katsuriki’s crew were met with strident resistance, with each sailor choosing to drown themselves rather than be captured. As a result of these final acts of defiance, the loss of HIJMS Katsuriki at this location on September 21st, 1944 cost her entire crew their lives.

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