Yukikaze

[Gordon Williamson]

The Destroyer Yukikaze was one of Japan's luckiest ships. She survived the war, coming through many major battles. Afgter the war she was given to the Nationalist Chinese navy and served until the 70s.

This is her in her original guise

[Gordon Williamson]

Note the large bare area of deck ahead of the bridge.

[Gordon Williamson]

And twin turrets astern

[Gordon Williamson]

The IJN realised pretty quickly that the greatest danger came not from ship to ship engagements, but from air attack. Yukikaze only had a modest AA armament at first, so was heavily modified.

A new AA platform was added in front of the bridge

[Gordon Williamson]

Hard to see in this scale, but as well as the triple barrel AA on the plaform, a row if single AA mounts were postioned along the edge of the deck (where the figures are)

[Gordon Williamson]

One of her aft turrets was also removed and replaced with triple AA mounts as well as more single AA mounts along the edge of the deck.

In this configuration ( but with the name painted on her hull side removed) Yukikaze took part in Operation "Ten-Ichi-Go" along with the super-battleship Yamato. This was the operation in which Yamato was sunk.

[nesredep]

Hello!

AMAZING.

All the best

Nesredep

[TacHel]

Was this scratch built? :o

[Snoopy]

Hi Gordon

About the history of the ship. Do you know if she was broken up in the seventies, by the chinese, or if she is preserved.

Snoopy

[Hauptmann]

Hi Gordon

About the history of the ship. Do you know if she was broken up in the seventies, by the chinese, or if she is preserved.

Snoopy

Was just checking old threads and ran across this one. Extremely interesting. I saw your question was never answered so did some snooping (no pun intended... well maybe just a little one. ) and came up with this:

Yukikaze (雪風^?, "Snowy Wind") was a Kagero-class destroyer in service with the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. She was the only member of her class to survive the war. The attrition rate of Japanese destroyers was extremely high due to heavy, prolonged combat and the need to use them to transport supplies to scattered Japanese island garrisons.

Early in the war she took part in the invasions of the Philippines and the Dutch East Indies. She participated in the battles of Midway, Santa Cruz, Leyte Gulf, and the Philippine Sea, as well as a lengthy stint on Guadalcanal troop runs and the naval battles around that island.Yukikaze also survived Operation Ten-Go, the abortive attack on the American force landing on Okinawa, during which the Yamato was sunk. Between these major engagements, Yukikaze participated in escort duty for ships in transit, particularly in the redeployment of Shinano during which the newly completed carrier was torpedoed by USN submarine and sunk. She spent the last months of the war on security duty in Japanese harbors and survived many Allied air raids.

After the war, she was used as a transport to bring home Japanese military forces still abroad. Yukikaze and Hibiki were the only ships to survive among the 82 Japanese destroyers built before the war.

[edit]ROCS Tang Yan

On 6 July 1947, Yukikaze was transferred to the Republic of China as a war reparation, where she was renamed Tang Yan (丹陽). She was finally scrapped in 1970, after running aground during a typhoon, and following a campaign to get her returned to Japan for preservation as a museum ship. Her rudder and one of her anchors were repatriated to Japan.

Yukikaze is very popular in Japan, being called "the unsinkable ship".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_destroyer_Yukikaze

A shame to have survived all that, gotten that far along only to end up at the breakers, especially when she could have lived on as a museum ship in Japan... so little left from a once great naval power.

Dan

[Haratio Fales]

I Had a nice Poster of that ship, but cant locate it at the moment. I am planing to build a model of the Yahagi, which is the Light Cruiser and destroyer division leader for the destroyer group that accompanied Yamato for Tenichi Go. She was the only other Capital Ship there and was sunk along with the Battleship. Pilots claimed that she was as hard to sink as the Yamato. I have a 1/350 scale model of Yahagi that I am going to use as reference for the scratch built one I plan to do in 1/72 scale.

Edited June 17, 2012 by Haratio Fales