After World War II most of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s battleships were at the bottom of the sea or scrapped, leaving the pre-dreadnought-turned-memorial ship Mikasa, victor of the 1905 Battle of Tsushima, as Japan’s sole survivor. Yamato is Japan’s most famous battleship, but except for some small artifacts, none of the ship has been raised. Other than Mikasa, if you want to see a Japanese battleship there are parts spread around the country, guns, turrets, anchors…

And they all came from the same battleship, Mutsu.

If you’re unfamiliar with Mutsu that’s understandable as she had a rather quiet career, even in war. As to why this battleship over all the others has been somewhat saved, it may be due less to any particular attribute of the ship itself or her history, but to the circumstances of her sinking.

A contemporary of USS Arizona (BB-39), Mutsu was a Nagato-class super-dreadnought laid down toward the end of World War I in Yokosuka and commissioned in 1921. On the day of her launch she was the most powerful surface combatant ever built.

Designed by Hiraga Yuzuru and taking advantage of the lessons learned at Jutland, the Nagato-class were intended to one-up the Royal Navy’s Queen Elizabeth-class. Previously Japan had relied heavily on British expertise and had procured many of its capital ships from their treaty partner. The Nagato-class would be a made in Japan original.

The result was a battleship that was faster than any other and the first to mount 16” guns. The Nagato-class had eight mounted in four twin turrets. In addition she had eight torpedo tubes because the Japanese navy had an obsession with mounting torpedoes on everything it could.

Welcome to the 16″ gun show. (Verny Park, Yokosuka)

Still, the Great War was over and she spent the interwar years without so much as a shot fired in anger, even as the Imperial Japanese Army ran roughshod over China. Her biggest accomplishments were serving as the Emperor’s flagship where he watched the 1927 and 1933 annual naval reviews, and providing aid after the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake.

Her wartime career was mostly spent training in Japan’s home waters except for a deployment in support of the Midway operation and for the Battle of the Eastern Solomons. She was 300 miles away when the Battle of Midway happened and so played no part, but did give fire support during the latter battle.

Nagato (left, Mutsu (center) and Tatsuta (right), 1927. Tatsuta ran over and sank a Japanese submarine during a 1924 exercise in Sasebo.(ww2db.com)

This quiet existence came to a sudden and violent end on Jun. 8, 1943 at the Hajirashima anchorage in Japan’s Seto Inland Sea on Jun. 8, 1943. Mutsu’s past few weeks had been rather uneventful, mostly spent at anchorage except for few days when she’d had her hull bottom cleaned in Kure. The only event taking place that day was a visit by 153 air cadets and instructors from the Tsuchiuura Naval Air Group.

Without warning her No. 3 turret magazine detonated just past noon with an explosion so powerful that it broke the ship in two. Her forward section with the tall pagoda mast overturned and quickly sank. Her aft end stayed afloat until the following morning before it sank as well. Only 353 of her 1,474 man crew and 13 of the visitors survived. The loss was comparable to the U.S. Navy’s greatest sea disaster, the sinking of cruiser USS Indianapolis (CA-35), which had 317 survivors from a crew of 1,269.

The accident was quickly covered up and the survivors sent to far flung garrisons where they couldn’t accidentally leak that Japan lost a capital ship in the protected home waters without a known cause. Many would die a year later at Saipan as a result.

Initially the detonation was suspected to have been caused by sanshiki explosive anti-aircraft shells for the 16” guns. There had been a fire at the Sagami arsenal a few years prior that had been caused due to improper shell storage, but after testing it was found that the shells could not have caused the fire.

There was fear that an Allied submarine may have somehow penetrated their defenses and made the kill, but there was no evidence of that either. Ultimately, there has never been a definitive answer as to why her magazine exploded.

Mutsu’s final service to the navy was being used as a fuel source a year later when the Navy siphoned 580 tons of fuel oil from her underwater wreckage.

While Japan lost battleships at sea, a few were sunk during the Kure air raids where the water was shallow enough that they could be quickly scrapped in place after the war. The sole surviving battleship, Mutsu’s sister ship Nagato, was used as an atomic bomb target at Bikini Atoll in 1947. I think it’s because Mutsu sank where she did, at a remote location within the home waters, and was completely submerged, that she was left alone when the war ended and no effort was made to raise and scrap her. Jump forward 25 years and she’s the perfect candidate for raising piece by piece for preservation and memorialization.

Though gone, Mutsu is now in a way Japan’s memorial battleship because her parts have been spread far, giving many the chance to get up close to what were once the most powerful guns mounted on a warship and a symbol of Japan’s modernizing military. Below are the places where you can visit a Japanese battleship. (An interesting side note, none of these places are located in the former Mutsu province that the ship was named for.)

Yamato Museum
Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture
A 16” gun, propeller, anchor, fairleader and the jack staff are on display outside. Her sister ship Nagato’s ensign is also on display indoors near the 86-foot Yamato model. (No typo- it’s 86-feet long, that’s bigger than a real PT boat!)

Eta Jima turret, 1947 (Victoria State Library)

Museum of Naval History at the Eta Jima Naval Academy
Eta Jima, Hiroshima Prefecture

Mutsu’s turrets were replaced during the 1934-36 modernization and her original No. 4 turret was placed on display at the Eta Jima Naval Academy. Some sources online claim the turret is from the 1970 salvage but the turret has verifiably been on display since long before then.

Mutsu Memorial
Suo-Oshima, Yamaguchi Prefecture

The Mutsu Memorial properly has a lot of Mutsu artifacts including the ship’s bow, an anchor, a propeller and 14-cm secondary battery. Inside is a large collection of smaller artifacts and personal items from the crew. They hold a memorial service every Jun. 8.

Verny Park
Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture

The 16” gun on display here was formerly at the Tokyo Museum of Maritime Science and now resides in Verny Park, a 20-minute walk away from Japan’s only surviving battleship, Mikasa. This naval rifle was salvaged from the ship’s No. 4 turret. There’s a 1/100 scale model of Mutsu displayed inside the adjacent (and free) Verny Park Commemorative Museum.

Hijiri Museum
Hijiri, Nagano Prefecture

A 16” gun is displayed outdoors.

Yushukan
Tokyo

There is a 14-cm secondary battery on display inside the large artifacts room.

ADDRESSES

Yamato Museum
5-20 Takaramachi, Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture 737-0029

Museum of Naval History at the Eta Jima Naval Academy
Maritime Self-Defense Force, Etajima 737-2101, Hiroshima Prefecture

Mutsu Memorial
2211-3, Ihota, Oshima-gun, Suooshima-cho, Yamaguchi Prefecture

Verny Park
1-1 Shioiricho, Yokosuka 238-0042, Kanagawa Prefecture

Hijiri Museum
3837 O, Omi, Higashi-Chikuma-gun, Nagano 399-7701

Yushukan
3-1-1 Kudankita, Chiyoda 102-0073, Tokyo Prefecture