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Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger

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Warship Wednesday, July 23, 2025: The Phoenix of Heigun

Above we see the Tachibana (improved Matsu) class destroyer Nashi (pennant 4810) sinking in the shallow waters off the coast of Heigun Island (Heigunjima) after a strike by carrier aircraft of the U.S. Navy’s TF 38, some 80 years ago this month, on 28 July 1945.

Never fear, for she would rise again.

The Matsu/Tachibana-class

In 1942, the Japanese admiralty sought to replenish their rapidly depleting ranks of Long Lance-wielding fast destroyers with a simplified “war finish” model, designated as the Type D.

Rather than the downright elegant pre-war-designed Type-B/Akizuki class (2,700 tons, 440 feet oal, 8×3.9″ guns, 4x25mm AAA, 4x610mm TT, 56 dc, 33 knots) the Type Ds sacrificed size, speed, and armament in the interest of getting as many “good enough” hulls in the water as possible.

As such, the Type Ds were much smaller, just 1,500 tons and 328 feet overall, but on a 2 boiler/2 turbine 19,000shp plant, could still make (almost) 28 knots. Further, while their gun armament was much reduced (three 5″/40 Type 89s in a 1×2 and 1×1 format) they carried many more AAA guns (two dozen 25mm Type 96s) than early war Japanese destroyers and still had room for 32 depth charges and a four-tube Long Lance battery, which gave them a big bite. The big size difference often leaves these ships rated today as destroyer escorts rather than destroyers.

An even more simplified version of the Type D, known in the West as the Tachibana class after the first hull so modified, began to arrive in early 1945. While there were corners cut, such as the use of lower-grade steel, a simpler hull form, more basic engineering, and the omission of a high-angle fire control director, they did have a fit for Type 13 early-warning and Type 22 surface-search radars

While 154 Matsu-class tin cans were planned, the strangulation of Japan’s war industry at all levels ensured that never happened. As it was, the first, Matsu herself, was only completed in late April 1944, at a point where the endgame was already well on its way.

In the end, just 34 Matsus (including 14 Tachibana subvariants) were completed. Ten of those were lost during the war, and six were too severely damaged to be repaired.

Anywhoo…

Meet Nashi

Laid down on 1 September 1944 (Showa 19) at the Kawasaki Heavy Industries Kobe Shipbuilding Works, Nashi (Pear tree) was the second destroyer to serve under that name with the Imperial Japanese Navy. The first was a Momi-class destroyer completed in 1919 and, small (just 1,000 tons) and armed with older 21-inch torpedo tubes, was obsolete and scrapped in 1940.

One of her first officers assigned was Lt. Sakon Naotoshi, age 19. The second son of VADM Sakon Masayoshi, he joined the Navy as an ensign candidate in September 1943 and, after a quick class on the battleship Ise, shipped out on the Mogami-class heavy cruiser Kumano that November, joining his older brother Masaaki, who was already an ensign. When Kumano was sent to the bottom off Luzon on 25 November 1944, Naotoshi survived and made it back to Japan, made Nashi’s navigator in February 1945 while the destroyer was fitting out.

War!

Delivered 15 March 1945, Nashi was assigned to the 11th Torpedo Squadron of RADM Takama Kan and sent to train in the relative safety of the Seto Inland Sea. However, due to scarce fuel supplies, most of this training was at anchor, and she only managed to get underway on a couple of short day trips. Originally tapped to participate in the Valkyrie ride that was Operation Ten-go, the final major Japanese naval operation of the war off Okinawa in April, there was not enough fuel to go around for Nashi and her utterly green crew, and she was left behind.

As described by navigator Sakon:

Nashi continued mainly anchorage training while at anchor. Many of the crew were older so-called national soldiers, but their skill level improved little by little through repeated training. Many of them could not swim, so I took them to a nearby beach and taught them how to swim. The first time was on Tencho-sai, April 29th, but the water was quite cold. I gathered the lookouts, anti-aircraft gunners, and machine gunners and taught them how to identify them, showing them pictures of Japanese and American aircraft. Since there were few opportunities to sail, the navigator had a lot of free time!

In May, she was assigned to the 11th TS’s 52nd Destroyer Division along with her sisters Sugi, Kashi, Kaede, Nire, and Hagi, and, shrugging off a B-29 attack, by early July was being refitted to operate a single Kaiten human torpedo over her stern.

By early July, Nashi and were placed under RADM Takeshi Matsumoto’s 31st Squadron, the Special Naval Corps that was being primed to resist the invasion of the Japanese Home Islands. However, the squadron only had an allotment of 850 tons of fuel oil for its 15 destroyers. As the Matsu-class each carried 370 tons of fuel, this was just a little over two ships’ worth. For this reason, only two ships, Nashi and sister Hagi, were to be in operation, and the rest were to be camouflaged near the coast, with the crews taking turns aboard Nashi and Hagi for training.

Speaking of training, Nashi served off Hikari as the target boat for Kaiten launched by the submarine I-157, then moved to Hirao, where she drilled in receiving and launching a Kaiten of her own (which she did four times in training). Then it was back to Hikari to serve as a target boat for I-36’s Kaiten.

On the 24th/25th July, while off the coast of Ushijima, Nashi was strafed by F6F Hellcats and, according to navigator Sakon, her crew downed two of them with the crew later picked up by a Navy PBY, which they saw from a distance but could not engage. This tracks with the large 1,700-plane strikes on Kure and the Seto Inland Sea done by Third Fleet’s (British) TF 37 and American TF 38 that occurred over 24-28 July and lost a combined 133 carrier aircraft but sank or damaged most of what was left of the Emperor’s Combined Fleet.

As detailed by NHHC:

In the four-day operation, TF-38 flew 3,620 offensive sorties (plus 672 British sorties from TF-37). U.S. aircraft dropped 1,389 tons of bombs, fired 4,827 rockets, and claimed 52 Japanese aircraft shot down and another 216 on ground. There were 170 Navy Crosses awarded, five of them posthumously. The cost was high: 101 U.S. Navy aircraft were downed and 88 men killed.

Speaking of which…

Caught while anchored off the north coast of Heigun Island on 28 July, Nashi was rocketed and strafed in attacks by 10 American carrier-born F6F Hellcats through the morning (NHHC credits her destruction to a bomb hit and a near miss). Her stern AAA magazine on fire and depth charges blowing purple flames, the ship’s captain, LCDR Toshio Takada (who previously had the light cruiser Noshiro as well as the destroyers Hatsuyuki and Kagero shot out from under him), ordered flooding which soon grew out of control and she capsized, taking 60 of her crew with her by 1400. Some 155 survivors were pulled from the water by local fishermen and transferred to her sister Hagi.

Even though the war only had a couple more weeks in it, LCDR Takada was quickly reassigned to command the 42nd Special Attack Squadron while his young navigator, Sakon, became navigator of the destroyer Hatsusakura.

Nashi was removed from the IJN’s List on 15 September 1945.

Of the 18 Matsu/Tachibanas still afloat and relatively intact on VJ Day, some were disarmed and used by their former crews to shuttle Japanese troops back home from their remaining garrisons overseas.

The “magic carpet” service finished, the Allies divided up the remaining vessels. The Americans sank or scrapped five in 1947-48. The Brits did the same for the five they inherited at Hong Kong and Singapore. The Soviets put four into service and kept them in operation into the late 1950s. Meanwhile, Chiang Kai-shek’s KMT fleet was given four hulls and kept them around until as late as 1961.

Slow rebirth of the Japanese Navy

Post-war, even though the Japanese naval ministry was being dismantled, a “Sea Sweeping Department” staffed with former naval personnel began operations under the blessing of the U.S. Navy as early as 6 October 1945 to clear more than 55,000 Japanese defensive and 11,000 American offensive mines off the country’s coast. It was a vital mission, with more than 90 ships hitting mines off Japan in the decade after the war, resulting in over 2,700 casualties. Among those needless losses was the USS Minivet (AM-371), sunk four days after Christmas 1945, taking 31 bluejackets with her.

Shuffled from the Demobilization Ministry to the Ministry of Transport, Japan’s Minesweeping Bureau eventually grew to some 300 vessels, mainly small converted trawlers and small left-over air-sea rescue boats, 85-foot Type 1 wooden-hulled subchasers (23 Chiozuru-class), and 108-foot Type 1 wooden-hulled picket boats (10 Ukishima class) armed with a single 13.2mm HMG ala the fictional Shinsei Maru and Kaishin Maru of “Godzilla Minus One” fame, crewed by 10,000 former IJN sailors and officers.

By 1948, it became the civilian Maritime Safety Agency, a force that is today’s Japan Coast Guard, with the minesweepers part of the Sea Route Clearance Headquarters.

By October 1950, 20 MSA minesweepers were sent to assist the UN forces in the Korean War as part of the “Japanese Special Minesweeping Force (Nihon tokubetsu sōkaitai).” Growing to 43 vessels operating in five divisions and in tandem with RN and USN forces, for two months, they actively swept mines in Wonsan, Incheon, Haeju, Gunsan, Jinnampo, and other areas. One of these Japanese MSA sweepers, MS-14, hit an enemy mine during clearing operations at Wonsan and sank, with one fatality and 18 injuries.

By August 1952, the uniformed National Safety Agency Guard (Kei Bitai) was formed– later becoming the  Safety Security Force and the Maritime Self-Defense Force, today’s Japanese navy– inheriting the mine mission. Organized at the time around 10 small minesweepers, the U.S. Navy quickly transferred eight 136-foot YMS-1-class minesweepers and four 138-foot Bluebird-class minesweepers to the force after the U.S. and Japan Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement was signed in March 1954, while the Japanese government began production of 30 assorted Atado, Yashiro, and Kasado-class minesweepers domestically.

However, the JMSDF needed some actual warships, rather than just a few squadrons of very lightly armed mine craft.

The U.S. Navy soon began loaning 18 beat-up WWII veteran Tacoma-class patrol frigates mothballed in Yokosuka to the budding JMSDF starting in 1953.

The first of these was ex-USS Ogden (PF-39) on 14 January 1953, which became JDS Kusu (PF-1), and so forth. In Japanese service, these became known as the “Tree” class due to their traditional arboreal names.

On 19 October 1954, the two well-worn Gleaves-class destroyer-minesweepers, ex-USS Ellyson (DMS-19) and Macomb (DMS-23), were transferred to Japan and became JDS Asakaze (DD-181) and Hatakaze (DD-182), respectively. They were followed the next June by two retired Bostwick destroyer escorts, ex-USS Amick (DE 168) and Atherton (DE-169), which entered service as Asahi and Hatsuhi.

Domestic Japanese warship production resumed in 1954 as well, with the twin 2,340-ton Harukaze-class destroyers, completed with U.S. weapons and sensors, laid down at Mitsubishi’s Nagasaki SY, followed by three small 1,000-ton Type B Akebono/Ikazuchi class destroyer escorts.

And then the JMSDF remembered the poor old Nashi.

Meet Wakaba

The local fishermen’s association in Heguinjima purchased the wreckage of the broken and long-submerged Nashi from the government in the early 1950s for its value in scrap (1.6 million yen) and to raise the hulk and move it offshore, where it would serve better use as a reef. With the blessing of the regional finance ministry, they hired the Hokusei Senpaku Kogyo Co., Ltd. to patch and lift the wreck intact.

ex-Nashi broke the surface on 21 September 1954.

As, on inspection, she was found to be in particularly good condition, it was decided to offer the wreck back to the government. The patriotic fishermen’s association waived its ownership and absorbed the financial loss, while the JMSDF agreed to reimburse Hokusei Senpaku’s expenses and purchased ex-Nashi on 12 May 1955.

Towed to Zosen’s Kure shipyard on 10 September, the ex-Nashi was in very rough shape indeed and spent the next nine months in a 900-million-yen restoration and reconstruction.

Her boilers and turbines were restored, and it was found that, besides being incredibly noisy (a decade in saltwater does that), they could still generate about 14,000shp, good enough for 24 knots.

Her superstructure was rebuilt, adding a western-style mainmast. Her wartime Japanese ordnance and sensors were removed. She received a forward twin Mk 33 3″/50 DP mount, a 24-spigot Hedgehog Mk 10 ASWRL, two depth charge racks, and two K-guns, along with SO-series radar. This configuration was similar to that of the Type B destroyer escorts that had been ordered at around the same time, but with a much better gun (the Type Bs had older 3″/50 DP singles).

Thus rebuilt, the JMSDF renamed the finished product Wakaba (“young leaf’), following in line with a circa 1905 Kamikaze-class destroyer scrapped in 1929 and a 1934 Hatsuharu-class destroyer that was sunk in Leyte Gulf in October 1944.

Our ex-Nashi/new-Wakaba recommissioned on 31 May 1956 and was assigned to the Yokosuka-based 11th Escort Division. Her pennant/hull number, issued the following September, was DE-216.

While it is often said in Western circles that Nashi/Wakaba was the only ship of the Imperial Japanese Navy that became a part of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force, that is not the case, as shown above with the small subchasers and picket boats turned minesweepers. However, Nashi/Wakaba was the largest former IJN vessel, and, from what I can tell, the only steel-hulled warship of the old fleet to rejoin the new one.

In September 1957, Wakaba entered Uraga Dock in Yokosuka to be refitted as a radar picket, basically a DER, and was given a fit of SPS-5 and SPS-12 radars when she emerged on 26 March 1958.

Additional sensor fits followed, and, during annual yard periods, she later picked up an SQS-11A sonar in February 1959 and an SPS-8B high-angle radar in December 1960, with a second mast installed aft.

In August 1962, Wakaba was used to evacuate children from Miyakojima during a volcanic eruption on the island.

Increasingly, she was used as a trials ship. In July 1962, she had the domestic NEC/Hitachi Type 3 sonar prototype installed for two years of testing. The set later evolved into the Type 66 OQS-3, which was the JMSDF’s go-to destroyer-mounted sonar during the late 1960s-early 1980s and was installed on the Cold War Minegumo, Takatsuki, Haruna, Yamagumo, and Chikugo classes.

The next year saw an experimental twin 21-inch torpedo tube installation on Wakaba. By 1963, she was withdrawn from further use as an escort and became a dedicated radar trials ship, her crew reduced from 206 to 170. She was listed as such in Jane’s.

On 24 July 1970, Wakaba was damaged in a collision with the tanker Daisan Chowa Maru in the Uraga Strait. A follow-on inspection in dry dock found that the tin can, built in a rush under less-than-ideal conditions in 1944-45, then sunk for a decade and patched back up, wasn’t worth continued investment. She was disarmed that fall at Sumitomo’s yard in Uraga and decommissioned and stricken in March 1971, and was disposed of via sale to the Furusawa Steel Works at Etajima.

Her SPS-12 air search radar was installed on the 4,100-ton training ship Katori (TV-3501) and remained in use until 1998.

Epilogue

By twist of fate, Nashi’s Imperial Japanese Navy weapons were a historic time capsule. The vast majority of WWII ordnance left in the country post-war was immediately demilitarized and scrapped. When the JMSDF reformed in 1954, as shown above, it did so with surplus USN hardware. Nashi’s decade underwater got her a pass, and once raised and taken to Kure, was carefully removed for display ashore.

Today, her forward 5″/40 Type 99 mount and Type 92 quad Long Lance torpedo tubes are on display at the JMSDF’s First Technical School in Etajima.

As for Nashi’s wartime navigator, Naotoshi Sakon, who lost both his brother (killed on the destroyer Shimakaze in 1944) and father (hung by the British at Hong Kong’s Stanley Prison in 1948 over the Bihar Incident), he was involved in demilitarization work after the war before joining the MSA in 1952 and the JMSDF in 1954. Promoted to captain, he was skipper of the destroyer Hatushi, then military attaché at the Embassy of Japan in Indonesia, commander of the 4th Escort Group, commander of the Training Squadron, director of the Training Department at the National Defense Academy of Japan, secretary-general of the Joint Staff Council, and director of the Joint Staff College, before retiring as a rear admiral in November 1979, capping a 36 year career. Staying active post-retirement, he worked for the Institute for Peace and Security Studies until his death at age 88 in 2013.

Sadly, the JMSDF has reused neither the names Nashi nor Wakaba.

There are a number of Tachibana-class destroyer model kits out there, complete with Kaiten, such as this 1/700 scale example from Pit-Road.

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

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