Royal Navy vessels manne by Imperial Navy 1917
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jerryasher
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Royal Navy vessels manne by Imperial Navy 1917
Does anyone know the date on which two trawlers (I have them as the Tokyo and Minigsby) were transferred to the Imperial Navy sometime after June 1917. Can anyone confirm the dates in which the destroyers Minstrel and Nemesis were transferred? The last Royal Navy CO is listed in service to 21 Sept 1917. Japan agreed to man and operate these ships as part of her 2nd Special Squadron in the Mediterranean. My notes record that the Tokyo was the Japanese given name, and she might have had a English name prior; Minigsby reportedly became Saikyo in Japanese service, Minstrel became Sendan and Nemesis became Kanran. Many thanks I advance. Kanran and Sendan are briefly mentioned p. 137 in Jentschura, The Saikyo Maru cited appears to be an earlier ship and not a trawler.
Re: Royal Navy vessels manne by Imperial Navy 1917
Hi Jerryasher, have you seen this article?
Japanese Operations in the Mediterranean
#1 Post by Andy H » 10 Aug 2006 03:14
Interesting article I thought
In early 1917, Japan finally deployed forces to the European theater of operations. The lead Japanese warships departed Singapore under the command of Admiral Sato Kozo for the Mediterranean on 11 March. Sato sailed for Malta with the cruiser Akashi and destroyers Ume, Kusunoki, Kaede, Katsura, Kashiwa, Matsu, Sugi, and Sakaki, which collectively constituted the Tenth and Eleventh Destroyer Flotillas. The task force hunted German raiders while crossing the Indian Ocean, arriving at Aden on 4 April. On 10 April Sato agreed to an urgent British request to escort the Saxon, an English troop transport; it sailed from Port Said to Malta guarded by Ume and Kusunoki. The remainder of the Japanese squadron quickly followed and commenced operations against German and Austrian submarines threatening allied shipping in the Mediterranean.71
The Tenth and Eleventh Flotillas reached Malta at the nadir of allied fortunes in the Mediterranean.72 Of the approximately twelve million British registered tons (BRT) of shipping lost during the war, 3,096,109 tons fell prey to mines and submarines in the Mediterranean. From February until December of 1917, allied shipping losses worldwide amounted to 2,566 ships, or 5,753,751 BRT, 48 percent of wartime losses.73 Allied losses in the Mediterranean in April 1917 totaled 218,000 tons, 7 percent of the total sinkings there during the entire war.74 Desperately short of escorts, the allies seriously considered the ideas of reducing the number of ships transiting the Mediterranean by sending them on the safer passage around the Cape of Good Hope, and of evacuating the British contingent at Salonika.75
The arrival of Sato’s cruiser and eight destroyers did not by itself tip the scales toward the allies in the Mediterranean. Nonetheless, the task given the Japanese squadron was an important one—protecting troop transports shifting vital reinforcements to France after the bloody offensives at Arras, Chemin des Dames, and in the Champagne.76 The appearance of Japanese escorts at Malta permitted the allied command to speed the passage of transports. Japanese vessels escorted the transports directly from Egypt to France without stopping at Malta except when convoys formed at that port.77
The destroyers Sakaki and Matsu and other Japanese warships participated in the dramatic rescue of troops from the torpedoed transport Transylvania on 4 May 1917. Some 413 men died in this tragedy off the French coast, but Japanese, French, and Italian naval forces saved most of the three thousand troops despite the danger of further torpedo attack. The Times History of the War reported that “the Admiralty sent a telegram of thanks and congratulation to the Japanese admiral in the Mediterranean for the splendid work of rescue performed by the Japanese on this occasion.”78
The Japanese navy relieved the Akashi in June 1917 with the armored cruiser Izumo and reinforced the Malta squadron with the destroyers Kashi, Hinoki, Momo, and Yanagi. As the tempo of antisubmarine operations in the Mediterranean accelerated, Japanese sailors temporarily manned two British gunboats, which they designated the Tokyo and Saikyo, and two British destroyers, renamed the Kanran and Sendan. At peak strength in 1917, the Japanese Mediterranean flotilla numbered seventeen warships.79
By late summer of 1917, British doubts about the competence and value of the Japanese warships, doubts initially expressed by such officers as Captain George P. W. Hope, director of the Operations Division of the Admiralty War Staff, had vanished. On 21 August Admiral George A. Ballard, Senior Naval Officer-in-Charge at Malta, reported to the Admiralty that the Japanese had rendered invaluable service in escorting troop transports since their arrival at Malta. He reminded the Admiralty that until the Imperial Japanese Navy destroyers had arrived the allies had been short of escorts for this vital duty. Ballard praised the operational capacity of the Japanese:
French standards of efficiency are certainly lower than British, however, and Italian standards are lower still. With the Japanese it is otherwise. Admiral Sato’s destroyers are kept in a highly serviceable condition and spend at least as large a proportion of their time at sea as our own, which is far from being the case with the French and Italian vessels of any class. The Japanese moreover are very independent in all matters of administration and supply whereas the French will never do anything for themselves if they can get it done for them.80
Japanese efficiency meant many more days spent at sea than the warships of other British allies, multiplying the impact of the Japanese contribution to the Mediterranean war effort.
The importance of Japanese escorts dramatically increased when in 1918 the Germans launched their spring offensive on the western front. The British responded with further large movements of troops from the Middle East to Marseilles. Japanese units escorted more than a hundred thousand British troops directly across the Mediterranean during the critical months of April and May. After the crisis ended, Japanese warships convoyed troops from Egypt to Salonika in support of the allied fall 1918 offensive. By the end of the war the squadron had accompanied 788 allied ships across the Mediterranean, including transports conveying seven hundred thousand troops to the fighting fronts. In thirty-four engagements with German and Austrian submarines the Japanese suffered damage to two destroyers, Matsu and, as we have seen, Sakaki.81
Japanese naval forces remained in European waters until May 1919. After the armistice, units of Admiral Sato’s Second Special Mission Squadron helped supervise the Central Powers’ surrendered fleets. The cruiser Izumo and destroyers Hinoki and Yanagi sailed from Malta to Scapa Flow to help guard the German fleet and prepare for the return to Japan of seven surrendered German submarines.
Sato dispatched the destroyers Katsura, Matsu, Sakaki, and Kaede to Brindisi to aid in supervising German and Austro-Hungarian ships surrendering in the Mediterranean. He then rode the cruiser Nisshin, with the eight remaining destroyers, to Constantinople in December 1918. Detaching the destroyers Kashiwa, Kanran, and Sendan (the latter two would be returned to the Royal Navy in 1919) to superintend enemy warships at Constantinople, the balance of the squadron returned to Malta, where it received new orders from Japan to escort German submarines from England back home as part of Japan’s war spoils. Sending the Ume and Kusunoki to the Adriatic for patrol duty, Sato left for England, gathering the remaining Japanese escorts on the way.
The Japanese squadron made Portland, England, on 5 January 1919. The Izumo, Hinoki, Yanagi, and the seven German U-boats joined Sato’s fleet, which then returned at the end of March to Malta, where it was rejoined by the Ume and Kusunoki. The tender Kwanto serviced the U-boats at Malta then joined the cruiser Nisshin and two destroyer flotillas in escorting the submarines to Japan. All reached Yokosuka without incident on 18 June 1919. The Izumo and the last destroyer detachment left Malta on April 10 for various ports, including Naples, Genoa, and Marseilles, and a final trip to Malta on May 5. The warships left ten days later for the voyage to Japan, reaching Yokosuka on 2 July 1919.82
“God Grant Our Alliance . . . May Long Endure”
British leaders had nothing but praise for the Japanese Mediterranean squadron before it sailed for home. Winston Churchill voiced the general high opinion when he said he “did not think that the Japanese [squadron] had ever done a foolish thing.” The governor of Malta, Lord Methuen, who reviewed Japanese warships there in March 1919, also lauded the Japanese navy for “its splendid work in European waters” and expressed the hope, “God grant our alliance, cemented in blood, may long endure.”83
The Japanese warships’ performance in the Mediterranean certainly merited high praise. Japanese destroyers’ ratio of time at sea to time in port was the highest of any allied warships during the war: Japanese warships were under way 72 percent of the time. The British record was 60 percent, the Greek and French only 45 percent. British officers credited the Japanese warships with excellent performance—at least, they added, when all went according to plan. Postwar British criticisms that the Japanese “acted inferior to our men when unforeseen situations cropped up” reflect British prejudices expressed during the war, prejudices not supported by the actual record. That record clearly demonstrates instead how seriously Japanese naval officers took their duty. The commanders of several Japanese warships are reported to have committed Hari-Kari when ships they were convoying were lost.84
http://www.nwc.navy.mil/press/Review/20 ... t3-w00.htm
Hope this helps.
Regards Steve.
Japanese Operations in the Mediterranean
#1 Post by Andy H » 10 Aug 2006 03:14
Interesting article I thought
In early 1917, Japan finally deployed forces to the European theater of operations. The lead Japanese warships departed Singapore under the command of Admiral Sato Kozo for the Mediterranean on 11 March. Sato sailed for Malta with the cruiser Akashi and destroyers Ume, Kusunoki, Kaede, Katsura, Kashiwa, Matsu, Sugi, and Sakaki, which collectively constituted the Tenth and Eleventh Destroyer Flotillas. The task force hunted German raiders while crossing the Indian Ocean, arriving at Aden on 4 April. On 10 April Sato agreed to an urgent British request to escort the Saxon, an English troop transport; it sailed from Port Said to Malta guarded by Ume and Kusunoki. The remainder of the Japanese squadron quickly followed and commenced operations against German and Austrian submarines threatening allied shipping in the Mediterranean.71
The Tenth and Eleventh Flotillas reached Malta at the nadir of allied fortunes in the Mediterranean.72 Of the approximately twelve million British registered tons (BRT) of shipping lost during the war, 3,096,109 tons fell prey to mines and submarines in the Mediterranean. From February until December of 1917, allied shipping losses worldwide amounted to 2,566 ships, or 5,753,751 BRT, 48 percent of wartime losses.73 Allied losses in the Mediterranean in April 1917 totaled 218,000 tons, 7 percent of the total sinkings there during the entire war.74 Desperately short of escorts, the allies seriously considered the ideas of reducing the number of ships transiting the Mediterranean by sending them on the safer passage around the Cape of Good Hope, and of evacuating the British contingent at Salonika.75
The arrival of Sato’s cruiser and eight destroyers did not by itself tip the scales toward the allies in the Mediterranean. Nonetheless, the task given the Japanese squadron was an important one—protecting troop transports shifting vital reinforcements to France after the bloody offensives at Arras, Chemin des Dames, and in the Champagne.76 The appearance of Japanese escorts at Malta permitted the allied command to speed the passage of transports. Japanese vessels escorted the transports directly from Egypt to France without stopping at Malta except when convoys formed at that port.77
The destroyers Sakaki and Matsu and other Japanese warships participated in the dramatic rescue of troops from the torpedoed transport Transylvania on 4 May 1917. Some 413 men died in this tragedy off the French coast, but Japanese, French, and Italian naval forces saved most of the three thousand troops despite the danger of further torpedo attack. The Times History of the War reported that “the Admiralty sent a telegram of thanks and congratulation to the Japanese admiral in the Mediterranean for the splendid work of rescue performed by the Japanese on this occasion.”78
The Japanese navy relieved the Akashi in June 1917 with the armored cruiser Izumo and reinforced the Malta squadron with the destroyers Kashi, Hinoki, Momo, and Yanagi. As the tempo of antisubmarine operations in the Mediterranean accelerated, Japanese sailors temporarily manned two British gunboats, which they designated the Tokyo and Saikyo, and two British destroyers, renamed the Kanran and Sendan. At peak strength in 1917, the Japanese Mediterranean flotilla numbered seventeen warships.79
By late summer of 1917, British doubts about the competence and value of the Japanese warships, doubts initially expressed by such officers as Captain George P. W. Hope, director of the Operations Division of the Admiralty War Staff, had vanished. On 21 August Admiral George A. Ballard, Senior Naval Officer-in-Charge at Malta, reported to the Admiralty that the Japanese had rendered invaluable service in escorting troop transports since their arrival at Malta. He reminded the Admiralty that until the Imperial Japanese Navy destroyers had arrived the allies had been short of escorts for this vital duty. Ballard praised the operational capacity of the Japanese:
French standards of efficiency are certainly lower than British, however, and Italian standards are lower still. With the Japanese it is otherwise. Admiral Sato’s destroyers are kept in a highly serviceable condition and spend at least as large a proportion of their time at sea as our own, which is far from being the case with the French and Italian vessels of any class. The Japanese moreover are very independent in all matters of administration and supply whereas the French will never do anything for themselves if they can get it done for them.80
Japanese efficiency meant many more days spent at sea than the warships of other British allies, multiplying the impact of the Japanese contribution to the Mediterranean war effort.
The importance of Japanese escorts dramatically increased when in 1918 the Germans launched their spring offensive on the western front. The British responded with further large movements of troops from the Middle East to Marseilles. Japanese units escorted more than a hundred thousand British troops directly across the Mediterranean during the critical months of April and May. After the crisis ended, Japanese warships convoyed troops from Egypt to Salonika in support of the allied fall 1918 offensive. By the end of the war the squadron had accompanied 788 allied ships across the Mediterranean, including transports conveying seven hundred thousand troops to the fighting fronts. In thirty-four engagements with German and Austrian submarines the Japanese suffered damage to two destroyers, Matsu and, as we have seen, Sakaki.81
Japanese naval forces remained in European waters until May 1919. After the armistice, units of Admiral Sato’s Second Special Mission Squadron helped supervise the Central Powers’ surrendered fleets. The cruiser Izumo and destroyers Hinoki and Yanagi sailed from Malta to Scapa Flow to help guard the German fleet and prepare for the return to Japan of seven surrendered German submarines.
Sato dispatched the destroyers Katsura, Matsu, Sakaki, and Kaede to Brindisi to aid in supervising German and Austro-Hungarian ships surrendering in the Mediterranean. He then rode the cruiser Nisshin, with the eight remaining destroyers, to Constantinople in December 1918. Detaching the destroyers Kashiwa, Kanran, and Sendan (the latter two would be returned to the Royal Navy in 1919) to superintend enemy warships at Constantinople, the balance of the squadron returned to Malta, where it received new orders from Japan to escort German submarines from England back home as part of Japan’s war spoils. Sending the Ume and Kusunoki to the Adriatic for patrol duty, Sato left for England, gathering the remaining Japanese escorts on the way.
The Japanese squadron made Portland, England, on 5 January 1919. The Izumo, Hinoki, Yanagi, and the seven German U-boats joined Sato’s fleet, which then returned at the end of March to Malta, where it was rejoined by the Ume and Kusunoki. The tender Kwanto serviced the U-boats at Malta then joined the cruiser Nisshin and two destroyer flotillas in escorting the submarines to Japan. All reached Yokosuka without incident on 18 June 1919. The Izumo and the last destroyer detachment left Malta on April 10 for various ports, including Naples, Genoa, and Marseilles, and a final trip to Malta on May 5. The warships left ten days later for the voyage to Japan, reaching Yokosuka on 2 July 1919.82
“God Grant Our Alliance . . . May Long Endure”
British leaders had nothing but praise for the Japanese Mediterranean squadron before it sailed for home. Winston Churchill voiced the general high opinion when he said he “did not think that the Japanese [squadron] had ever done a foolish thing.” The governor of Malta, Lord Methuen, who reviewed Japanese warships there in March 1919, also lauded the Japanese navy for “its splendid work in European waters” and expressed the hope, “God grant our alliance, cemented in blood, may long endure.”83
The Japanese warships’ performance in the Mediterranean certainly merited high praise. Japanese destroyers’ ratio of time at sea to time in port was the highest of any allied warships during the war: Japanese warships were under way 72 percent of the time. The British record was 60 percent, the Greek and French only 45 percent. British officers credited the Japanese warships with excellent performance—at least, they added, when all went according to plan. Postwar British criticisms that the Japanese “acted inferior to our men when unforeseen situations cropped up” reflect British prejudices expressed during the war, prejudices not supported by the actual record. That record clearly demonstrates instead how seriously Japanese naval officers took their duty. The commanders of several Japanese warships are reported to have committed Hari-Kari when ships they were convoying were lost.84
http://www.nwc.navy.mil/press/Review/20 ... t3-w00.htm
Hope this helps.
Regards Steve.
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jerryasher
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Re: Royal Navy vessels manne by Imperial Navy 1917
Thank you Steve.
Re: Royal Navy vessels manne by Imperial Navy 1917
What was the advantage to Japan of manning British ships, they could have sent another Destroyer Squadron to the Med. they had to send the crews anyway.
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jerryasher
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Re: Royal Navy vessels manne by Imperial Navy 1917
Hi Stulev: The advantage was political/diplomatic. The flotilla was there to meet the specific requests of Great Britain. The four Momo's comprised the 15th Destroyer Flotilla and they had only been commissioned over the last seven months. Really as a matter of practicality, the dozen DD's in the Med. were the best in the Imperial Navy and any other DD's not really their equal. I believe an aux was sent Kanto or Kanto Maru but TROM is murky. Possibly crews for UK ships went out on it. Japan's political/diplomatic need was UK support at the Peace Conference relative to the disposal of the German possessions, the Qingdao leases in China and the islands of the Pacific.
Re: Royal Navy vessels manne by Imperial Navy 1917
I only see 8 DDs listed it the two squadrons listed earlier in this thread not the 12 you state - if there were 12 then the following comments are not relevant.
But by 1917 the German possessions in the Pacific were already occupied. The Japanese were assisting in escorting British shipping in the Indian Ocean. your comment about the DDs in the Med being the newest and best in the Japanese Navy is interesting. the IJN had 10 KABA class DDs (built 1914-15 most of witch were in the two squadrons in the Med) and 4 MOMO class DDs (built 1916-17)
So they had 6 more modern DDs available without using British ships and still getting political/diplomatic advantage.
But by 1917 the German possessions in the Pacific were already occupied. The Japanese were assisting in escorting British shipping in the Indian Ocean. your comment about the DDs in the Med being the newest and best in the Japanese Navy is interesting. the IJN had 10 KABA class DDs (built 1914-15 most of witch were in the two squadrons in the Med) and 4 MOMO class DDs (built 1916-17)
So they had 6 more modern DDs available without using British ships and still getting political/diplomatic advantage.
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jerryasher
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Re: Royal Navy vessels manne by Imperial Navy 1917
Hi Stulev: During the war Japan commissioned the ten Kaba's in 1915. Kiri and Kaba seemed not to have sent to the Med. The first of the Momo's was commissioned in December 1916 and last in May 1917. No other destroyers were commissioned in 1917. The six Enoki 's were not commissioned until March - April 1918, ( the commissioning dates may have been coordinated to ceremonies relating to Emperor}. Unless I missed an entire class, I don't see six modern DD's available. It was the British who asked for the Japanese crews and Japan granting a favor. Diplomatically Japan pulled out all stops to win the support of Great Britain, Russia, the United States, France, Italy, and even an important faction of the Chinese government to support her "Special Interests," in East Asia. Doing Great Britain an additional favor, risking two hundred additional sailors was a low price to be able to say, But' don't you recall when...." , for an important goal.
Re: Royal Navy vessels manne by Imperial Navy 1917
Hi guys.
The IJN had the DD's Ume, Kusunoki, Kaede, Katsura, Kashiwa, Matsu, Sugi, Sakaki,by April 1917 in the Mediterranean and Kashi, Hinoki, Momo, Yanagi followed in June 1917. In addition they had the ex British DD's Kanran and Sendan and the ex British Gunboats Tokyo and Saikyo which is quite a formidable force to assist the Allied war effort.
Regards Steve.
The IJN had the DD's Ume, Kusunoki, Kaede, Katsura, Kashiwa, Matsu, Sugi, Sakaki,by April 1917 in the Mediterranean and Kashi, Hinoki, Momo, Yanagi followed in June 1917. In addition they had the ex British DD's Kanran and Sendan and the ex British Gunboats Tokyo and Saikyo which is quite a formidable force to assist the Allied war effort.
Regards Steve.
Re: Royal Navy vessels manne by Imperial Navy 1917
Thank you all for the information.