The Story of the Great War, Volume 2: History of the European War from Official Sources
History
The Story of the Great War, Volume 2: History of the European War from Official Sources
World War, 1914-1918
The dreadnought _Satsuma_ also came in 1910--a vessel displacing 19,400
tons, but making a speed of only 18.2 knots, and with an extraordinarily
heavy main battery consisting of four 12-inch guns and twelve 10-inch
guns. The _Aki_, launched in 1911, was 400 tons heavier than the
_Satsuma_, and was more than 2 knots faster, and her main battery was
equally strong. The dreadnoughts _Settsu_ and _Kawachi_, completed in
1913 and 1912 respectively, displaced 21,420 tons, but were able to make
not more than 20 knots. At this time the Japanese admiralty, perhaps on
account of lessons learned in the war with Russia, was building
dreadnoughts with less speed than those in the other navies, but with
much heavier main batteries. These two vessels carried a unique main
battery of twelve 12-inch guns, along with others of smaller
measurement. What the dreadnoughts lacked in speed was made up in that
of four battle cruisers launched after 1912. These were the _Kirishima_,
_Kongo_, _Hi-Yei_, and _Haruna_, with the good speed of 28 knots. Their
displacement was 27,500 tons, and they carried in their primary
batteries eight 14-inch guns and sixteen 6-inch guns.
At the time Japan entered the war she had in building four
superdreadnoughts with the tremendous displacement of 30,600 tons. These
vessels, the _Mitsubishi_, _Yukosaka_, _Kure_, and _Kawasaki_, had been
designed to carry a main battery of the strength of the U.S.S.
_Pennsylvania_, and to have a speed of 22.5 knots.
The first move of the Japanese navy in the Great War was to cooperate
with the army in besieging the German town of Kiaochaw on the Shantung
Peninsula in China, but the operation was soon more military than naval.
Japanese warships captured Bonham Island in the group known as the
Marshall Islands, and, having cleared eastern waters of German warships,
scoured the Pacific in such a manner as to chase those which escaped
into the regions patrolled by the British navy.
The German vessels which made their escape were among the eleven which
were separated from the rest of Germany's navy in the North Sea at the
outbreak of hostilities. They were, with the exception of the
_Dresden_, the _Leipzig_, _Nuernberg_, _Scharnhorst_, and _Gneisenau_. It
was weeks before they were first reported--on September 22 at the harbor
of Papeete, where they destroyed the French gunboat _Zelie_, and after
putting again to sea their location was once more a mystery.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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