Japanese Destroyer Yayoi (1925)

The Japanese destroyer was one of twelve s built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during the 1920s. During the Pacific War, she participated in the Battle of Wake Island in December 1941 and the occupations of New Guinea and the Solomon Islands in early 1942.

Design and description

The ''Mutsuki'' class was an improved version of the s and was the first with triple torpedo tubes. The ships had an overall length of and were between perpendiculars. They had a beam of , and a mean draft of . The ''Mutsuki''-class ships displaced at standard load and at deep load.Whitley, p. 191 They were powered by two Parsons geared steam turbines, each driving one propeller shaft, using steam provided by four Kampon water-tube boilers. The turbines were designed to produce , which would propel the ships at . The ships carried of fuel oil which gave them a range of at . Their crew consisted of 150 officers and crewmen.Jentschura, Jung & Mickel, p. 143

The main armament of the ''Mutsuki''-class ships consisted of four Type 3 guns in single mounts; one gun forward of the superstructure, one between the two funnels and the last pair back to back atop the aft superstructure. The guns were numbered '1' to '4' from front to rear. The ships carried two above-water triple sets of 61-centimeter torpedo tubes; one mount was between the forward superstructure and the forward gun and the other was between the aft funnel and aft superstructure. Four reload torpedoes were provided for the tubes. They carried 18 depth charges and could also carry 16 mines. They could also fitted with minesweeping gear.Chesneau, p. 192

Construction and career

''Yayoi'' was laid down by the Uraga Dock Company at its shipyard in Uraga on 11 January 1924, launched on 11 July 1925 and completed on 28 August 1926. Originally commissioned simply as ''Destroyer No. 23'', the vessel was assigned the name ''Yayoi'' on 1 August 1928. In the late 1930s, ''Yayoi'' participated in combat during the Second Sino-Japanese War and later in the Invasion of French Indochina in 1940.

Pacific War

At the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, ''Yayoi'' was assigned to Destroyer Division 30 under Destroyer Squadron 6 of the 4th Fleet. She sortied from Kwajalein on 8 December as part of the Wake Island invasion force. This consisted of the light cruisers , , and , the destroyers ''Yayoi'', , , , , and , two old vessels converted to patrol boats (''Patrol Boat No. 32'' and ''Patrol Boat No. 33''), and two troop transports containing 450 Japanese Special Naval Landing Forces (SNLF) troops.

The Japanese approached the island early on the morning of 11 December, and the warships began to bombard the island at a range of at 05:30. As none of the six American coast-defense guns replied, Rear Admiral Sadamichi Kajioka, commander of the invasion forces, ordered his ships to close the island, believing that the American guns had been destroyed by the earlier aerial attacks. Encouraging this, Major James Devereux, commander of the United States Marine garrison, had ordered his men to hold their fire until he gave the order to do so. After the Japanese ships had closed to a range of , he ordered his guns to open fire. They did so with great effect, sinking ''Hayate'', near-missing Kajioka's flagship ''Yubari'', and causing to him to order his forces to disengage. During this time, ''Yayoi'' was hit by a 5-inch shell, which killed one man and wounded 17 others. ''Yayoi'' returned on 23 December with the second (and ultimately successful) Wake Island invasion force before returning to Kwajalein.

The ship escorted a convoy from Kwajalein to the naval base at Truk in January 1942, where a sponson was installed for a pair of license-built Type 93 anti-aircraft machineguns on the forward side of the bridge. ''Yayoi'' then escorted a troop convoy from Truk to Guam later that month, and then joined the invasion of the Solomon Islands, covering the landings of Japanese forces during Operation R (the invasion of Rabaul, New Ireland and New Britain), and during Operation SR (the invasion of Lae and Salamaua on New Guinea) in January–March. From 28 March to 1 April, she participated in the initial occupation of the Shortland Islands and Bougainville in the Solomon Islands. Later that month, the ship supported the occupation of the Admiralty Islands.

During the Battle of the Coral Sea from 7–8 May 1942, ''Yayoi'' was assigned to the Operation Mo invasion force for Port Moresby. After that operation was cancelled, she returned to Japan in July for refitting at the Sasebo Naval Arsenal.Nevitt

After repairs were completed in mid-July ''Yayoi'' was reassigned to the IJN 8th Fleet and participated in the bombardment of Henderson Field on 24 August 1942. During the Battle of the Eastern Solomons on 25 August 1942, ''Yayoi'' rescued survivors from her sister ship , which had been sunk in an attack by USAAF B-17 Flying Fortress bombers.

At the end of August, ''Yayoi'' made a number of Tokyo Express troop transport runs to Milne, New Guinea. From early September, it began participating in Operation Ke, the evacuation of Japanese forces from Guadalcanal. On 11 September 1942, after departing Rabaul on an evacuation mission to Goodenough Island, ''Yayoi'' came under attack by Allied B-17 Flying Fortress and B-25 Mitchell bombers, northwest of Vakuta Island at coordinates . The attack also killed the commander of Destroyer Division 30, Captain Shiro Yasutake. Taking on water uncontrollably, ''Yayoi''s captain, Lieutenant Commander Shizuka Kajimoto, gave the decision to abandon ship. The destroyers and later rescued 83 survivors from nearby Normanby Island. ''Yayoi'' was struck from the Navy List on 20 October 1942.

Notes

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External links

Mutsuki-class destroyers on Materials of the Imperial Japanese Navy

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yayoi
Mutsuki-class destroyers
Ships built by Uraga Dock Company
1925 ships
Second Sino-Japanese War naval ships of Japan
World War II destroyers of Japan
Destroyers sunk by aircraft
Ships sunk by US aircraft
Shipwrecks in the Solomon Sea
World War II shipwrecks in the Pacific Ocean
Maritime incidents in September 1942