was a

river gunboat A river gunboat is a type of gunboat adapted for river operations. River gunboats required shallow draft for river navigation. They would be armed with relatively small caliber cannons, or a mix of cannons and machine guns. If they carried mor ...

of the

Imperial Japanese Navy The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrender ...

, part of the 11th Gunboat

Sentai In Japanese, is a military unit and may be literally translated as "squadron", " task force", " division (of ships)", "group" or "wing". The terms "regiment" and "flotilla", while sometimes used as translations of ''sentai'', are also used to ...

, that operated on the

Yangtze River The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ; ) is the longest list of rivers of Asia, river in Asia, the list of rivers by length, third-longest in the world, and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country. It rises at Jari Hill in th ...

in China during the 1930s, and during the

Second Sino-Japanese War The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Th ...

. On 13 December 1937, ''Hira'' and other IJN ships engaged Chinese positions at Xiaguan, China and attacked Chinese boats and rafts on the Yangtze River. On 17 August 1944 ''Hira'' was damaged by US 14th Air Force aircraft at Kiukiang, China. On 26 November 1944 ''Hira'' and the gunboat '' Hozu'' ran aground near Anking, China. Chinese aircraft subsequently bombed and sunk ''Hozu'' and severely damaged ''Hira''. ''Hira'' was scrapped in July 1945.

Sources

Japanese gunboats (with photos)

References

Seta-class gunboats Second Sino-Japanese War naval ships of Japan Maritime incidents in December 1944 Shipwrecks of China Ships built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries {{Japan-mil-ship-stub