The Japanese destroyer was one of 21 s built for the
Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) in the late 1910s. It was decommissioned on February 1, 1940, and converted to a training ship. It was later re-converted to auxiliary ship No.2 Tomariura (第二泊浦, Dai-2 Tomariura) on December 15, 1944, and was later modified into a
Shin'yō suicide motorboat mothership in 1945. It was surrendered at the end of
World War II and was finally scrapped in 1947.
Design and description
The ''Momi'' class was designed with higher speed and better
seakeeping than the preceding second-class destroyers. The ships had an
overall length of and were
between perpendiculars. They had a
beam of , and a mean
draft of . The ''Momi''-class ships displaced at
standard load and at
deep load.
[Jentschura, Jung & Mickel, p. 137] ''Ashi'' was powered by two
Brown-Curtis geared
steam turbine
A steam turbine is a machine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work on a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Charles Parsons in 1884. Fabrication of a modern steam turbin ...
s, each driving one
propeller shaft using steam provided by three
Kampon water-tube boilers. The turbines were designed to produce to give the ships a speed of . The ships carried a maximum of of
fuel oil
Fuel oil is any of various fractions obtained from the distillation of petroleum (crude oil). Such oils include distillates (the lighter fractions) and residues (the heavier fractions). Fuel oils include heavy fuel oil, marine fuel oil (MFO), bun ...
which gave them a range of at . Their crew consisted of 110 officers and crewmen.
[Watts & Gordon, p. 260]
The main armament of the ''Momi''-class ships consisted of three
Type 3 guns in single mounts; one gun forward of the
well deck, one between the two
funnels, and the last gun atop the aft
superstructure
A superstructure is an upward extension of an existing structure above a baseline. This term is applied to various kinds of physical structures such as buildings, bridges, or ships.
Aboard ships and large boats
On water craft, the superstruct ...
. The guns were numbered '1' to '3' from front to rear. The ships carried two above-water twin sets of
torpedo tubes; one mount was in the well deck between the forward superstructure and the bow gun and the other between the aft funnel and aft superstructure.
[
]
Construction and career
''Ashi'' was laid down on November 15, 1920, at the Kawasaki Heavy Industries shipyard
A shipyard, also called a dockyard or boatyard, is a place where ships are built and repaired. These can be yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other cargo or passenger ships. Dockyards are sometimes more associated with maintenance a ...
at Kobe
Kobe ( , ; officially , ) is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture Japan. With a population around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Tokyo and Yokohama. It is located in Kansai region, whic ...
. She was launched on September 3, 1921, and completed on October 29, 1921. It was decommissioned on February 1, 1940, and converted to a training ship. It was later re-converted to auxiliary ship No.2 Tomariura (第二泊浦, Dai-2 Tomariura) on December 15, 1944, and was later modified into a Shin'yō suicide motorboat mothership in 1945. It was surrendered at the end of World War II and was finally scrapped in 1947.
Notes
References
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Ashi (1921)
1921 ships
Ships built by Kawasaki Heavy Industries
Momi-class destroyers
Destroyers sunk by aircraft
Ships sunk by US aircraft
Maritime incidents in September 1942
World War II shipwrecks in the Pacific Ocean