Triton Oceanic

Photograph © Dennis Champ

Project Kongo

This is the second major expedition to be undertaken by Triton. The objective is to find and document the wreck of the IJN Kongō, a 36,000-ton battleship sunk off Formosa during the second world war...

His Imperial Japanese Majesty’s Ship Kongō (金剛) was the first dreadnought to see service with the Imperial Japanese Navy and the first of four ships of her class. Laid down in the Vickers yard in England in 1911, and launched sixteen months later on 18th May 1912, the design was considered revolutionary, influencing the design of subsequent battleships built by the Japanese and other navies and founding a lineage that would eventually give birth to super battleships such as the Yamato and the Musashi.

Commissioned into Japanese service on 16th August 1913, the Kongō displaced 36,600 tons and boasted a main battery of eight 14-inch guns, at the time, the largest caliber guns ever mounted on a battleship. In her last refit, the Kongō received oil-fired turbines boosting her top speed to 30 knots. The earlier coal-fired boilers can be seen on display at the Yamato Museum in Kure and give an excellent sense of the size of the Kongō. Earlier modifications had seen the installation of heavier armour against shells and torpedoes, as well as the ability to carry, launch and recover up to three floatplanes.

In 1939, the Kongō had her home port in Hiroshima and the subsequent outbreak of hostilities in the Pacific found her operating in the South China Sea. The Kongō and her group were unable to close with Force Z, after the allied group was sighted by a submarine, leaving HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales to be sunk by aerial bombardment. The Kongō did however provide support for Japanese invasion operations throughout the Pacific and later performed escort duties for the carriers engaged in air attacks against the Australian port of Darwin on 19th February 1942. The ship later took part in operations off the coast of Sri Lanka in what would become known as the Indian Ocean Raid, which resulted in the sinking of the British aircraft carrier HMS Hermes.

The ship formed part of the Japanese fleet engaged in the battles at Midway, Guadalcanal, the Philippine Sea and Leyte Gulf before beginning the long transit back to Japan in company with the battleships Yamato and Nagato and a destroyer escort. The squadron’s route would take them through the Formosa Straits and it was there that the Kongō would eventually meet her end at the hands of an American submarine, the USS Sealion.

On the night of 20th November 1944, at 0301hrs, the Kongō was struck by two torpedoes fired from the USS Sealion, with the escort destroyer Urakaze being hit by a third and sunk. Though damaged and listing, the Kongō was still able to make way and continued with the group until the extent of the damage forced her to slowly fall out from the formation. Permission was sought and granted for the Kongō to make for the nearby port of Keelung, on the northern tip of Taiwan some 65 nautical miles to the southeast, and the Kongō departed the main group at 0440hrs along with a small destroyer escort.

Within fifteen minutes of detaching herself from the main force, the Kongō found herself listing at 45 degrees and flooding uncontrollably. At 0518, the vessel was dead in the water and the order was given to abandon ship once it was realised that there was no way to save her. At 0524, whilst the evacuation was still underway, the forward 14-inch magazine erupted and the broken Kongō sank beneath the waves in a matter of moments. 237 survivors were recovered and as many as 1,200 are thought to have perished either in the initial torpedo attack or the subsequent detonation and sinking.

The Kongō was the last battleship to have been sunk by a submarine in wartime and was the only Japanese battleship to have suffered such a fate.

The crew of the USS Sealion made an audio recording of the attack which still survives today and which can be found on the internet. The Sealion survived the war only to be decommissioned and subsequently sunk as a target in 1978, an ignominous end to her distinguished career. Her commander, Eli T. Reich, achieved the rank of Vice Admiral before retiring from the navy. Vice Admiral Reich passed away on 30th November 1999 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia.

It is believed that the Kongō sank some 55 nautical miles northwest of Keelung, it is thought at a depth of around 70 metres. The seabed topography around the location, at the mouth of the Formosa Strait, is characterised by a large, flattish plateau which, with one or two anomalies, stretches for quite some considerable distance in all directions from the estimated wreck location. The wreck lies in international waters, in an area prone to currents and regularly swept by typhoons.

In as far as it has been possible to determine, the wreck of the Kongō has never been properly surveyed and / or documented. Using data from the USS Sealion, and other sources, it has been possible to narrow the search area and locating the wreck should be possible using existing, commercially available technology. Once the wreck has been located, modern equipment and techniques will allow divers to safely explore the vessel within the expected depth range, provided proper procedures and protocols are in place and adhered to.

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The IJN Kongo