IMPERIAL JAPANESE NAVY DESTROYER

Description

At the end of 1942, Hamakaze was the first destroyer of the Japanese Navy to be equipped with radar after the installation of a Type 22 set. During the American campaign for Okinawa, she was sent along with the super battleship Yamato on the suicide mission Operation Ten-Go (Ten’ichigo). During the operation she lost steering after the rudder was struck an aerial torpedo. The engines soon gave out as well. Dead in the water, she quickly succumbed to the falling bombs all around her. Ensign Mitsuru Yoshida witnessed her sinking: "On the left outer edge of the formation, Hamakaze all of a sudden seems to expose her crimson belly, then lifts her stern up into the air." "She sinks in a matter of only twenty of thirty seconds. She leaves behind only a sheet of white foam." Survivors of the sinking drifted for five hours before being rescued. (Scale : 1/700e)