Article of the day for March 13, 2016
The Article of the day for March 13, 2016 is Japanese battleship Asahi.
Asahi was a pre-dreadnought battleship built in Britain for the Imperial Japanese Navy in the late 1890s. As flagship of the Standing Fleet, Asahi was in every major naval battle of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05. The ship saw no combat during World War I, but participated in the Siberian Intervention in 1918. Reclassified as a coastal defence ship in 1921, Asahi was disarmed two years later to meet the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty, then served as a training and submarine depot ship. The ship was modified for marine salvage and rescue before being placed in reserve in 1928. Asahi was recommissioned in late 1937, after the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War, and used to transport Japanese troops. In 1938 the ship was converted into a repair ship and based first at Japanese-occupied Shanghai, China, and then Camranh Bay, French Indochina, from late 1938 to 1941. The ship was transferred to occupied Singapore in early 1942 to help repair a damaged light cruiser and ordered to return home in May. Asahi was sunk en route by the American submarine USS Salmon, but most of the crew survived.
Asahi was a pre-dreadnought battleship built in Britain for the Imperial Japanese Navy in the late 1890s. As flagship of the Standing Fleet, Asahi was in every major naval battle of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05. The ship saw no combat during World War I, but participated in the Siberian Intervention in 1918. Reclassified as a coastal defence ship in 1921, Asahi was disarmed two years later to meet the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty, then served as a training and submarine depot ship. The ship was modified for marine salvage and rescue before being placed in reserve in 1928. Asahi was recommissioned in late 1937, after the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War, and used to transport Japanese troops. In 1938 the ship was converted into a repair ship and based first at Japanese-occupied Shanghai, China, and then Camranh Bay, French Indochina, from late 1938 to 1941. The ship was transferred to occupied Singapore in early 1942 to help repair a damaged light cruiser and ordered to return home in May. Asahi was sunk en route by the American submarine USS Salmon, but most of the crew survived.
