The Battleship Which Survived An Atomic Bomb

Continuing on with checking-out and explaining the monuments located in Verny Park...

The above photo shows three of them --- the one furthest away commemorates the poet Masaoka Shiki, while one in the middle is a memorial to the crew and Imperial Navy mine-laying warship: Okinoshima.

So, that leaves the one in the foreground, which is a monument to the battleship NAGATO.

 

(From WIKIPEDIA) --- Nagato (長門), named for Nagato Province, was a super-dreadnought battleship built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during the 1910s. The lead ship of her class, she carried supplies for the survivors of the Great Kantō earthquake in 1923. The ship was modernized in 1934–36 with improvements to her armor and machinery and a rebuilt superstructure in the pagoda mast style. Nagato briefly participated in the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 and was the flagship of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto during the attack on Pearl Harbor. She covered the withdrawal of the attacking ships and did not participate in the attack itself.

Other than participating in the Battle of Midway in June 1942, where she did not see combat, the ship spent most of the first two years of the Pacific War training in home waters. She was transferred to Truk in mid-1943, but did not see any combat until the Battle of the Philippine Sea in mid-1944 when she was attacked by American aircraft. Nagato did not fire her main armament against enemy vessels until the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944. She was lightly damaged during the battle and returned to Japan the following month. The IJN was running out of fuel by this time and decided not to fully repair her. Nagato was converted into a floating anti-aircraft platform and assigned to coastal defense duties. She was attacked in July 1945 as part of the American campaign to destroy the IJN's last remaining capital ships, but was only slightly damaged. In mid-1946, the ship was a target for nuclear weapon tests during Operation Crossroads. She survived the first test with little damage, but was sunk by the second.

NAGATO was built at Kure Naval Arsenal, but spent most of its commissioned service based out of Yokosuka, where it was assigned to the Naval District Command.  Also, NAGATO embarked on its final deployment from Yokosuka, using its own propulsion-power & under the command of a U.S. Navy officer, en route Eniwetok, and its final operation/destiny as a target for nuclear weapons...

ありし日の　
聯合艦隊旗艦長門の
姿をここに留めて　
昭和の激動の時代を
偲ぶよすがとする