HIJMS Takasago

Named not for Taiwan but for a city near Kobe in Hyogo Prefecture, HIJMS Takasago was an Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) cruiser ordered in 1896.  It was built by Armstrong Whitworth's Elswick shipyard in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England and armed with two 8-inch guns, twenty-eight QF guns, and five torpedo tubes.  Additional features included a ramming prow, in case the ship was to ever engage in close-quarters combat, and Harvey armor to protect against armor-piercing shells.  HIJMS Takasago was commissioned in 1898 and sent to its base in Japan. 

Two years later, the 1900 Boxer Rebellion threatened foreign interests in China, and the Eight-Nation Alliance was formed to suppress the rebellion.  As a member of the alliance, Japan sent HIJMS Takasago to Tianjin to support General Fukushima's amphibious assault of the port city, which helped defeat the Boxer Rebellion.  In 1902, HIJMS Takasago sailed to Britain to represent Japan at the coronation of King Edward VII and celebrate the Anglo-Japanese alliance.  Two years later, HIJMS Takasago was Admiral Dewa's flagship during the Japanese attack on Port Arthur, China in February 1904, which began the Russo-Japanese War. 

During the war, it captured the Russian merchant ship Manchuria, which was recommissioned by Japan as Kanto Maru and used as a military transport.  HIJMS Takasago also attacked the Russian cruiser Bayan, rescued sailors from the battleships HIJMS Hatsuse and HIJMS Yashima after the ships struck Russian naval mines, and fought in the August 1904 Battle of the Yellow Sea.  On December 13, 1904, HIJMS Takasago was sailing through a blizzard south of Port Arthur when it entered a minefield laid by the Russian admiral Alexander Kolchak.  HIJMS Takasago struck a Russian mine, which set off an explosion in the ammunition magazine and tore a massive hole in the cruiser. 

The flooding proved uncontrollable, and the winter weather made it impossible to launch the lifeboats as HIJMS Takasago sank, taking 273 sailors to the bottom of the sea.  The 162 sailors that had not been burnt, frozen, or drowned were rescued by fellow cruiser HIJMS Otowa.  For sinking a Japanese warship, Admiral Kolchak was awarded the Golden Sword of Courage.  HIJMS Takasago would be the last major Japanese warship sunk by Russia, which would soon lose much of its fleet in the May 1905 Battle of Tsushima.  This model of the cruiser is on display aboard the museum battleship HIJMS Mikasa in Yokosuka.