One of the things I miss about living in Sasebo is being surrounded by the historic and still used remains of a century old naval arsenal. In the majestic herd of towering cranes that rise over ancient red brick warehouses one stands alone, the 250-ton giant cantilever crane that looms over India Basin. Like the akarenga (red brick warehouses) at its steel feet, it is a remnant of Sasebo’s formative years as both a city and naval shipyard. It’s also a reminder of when Japan and Scotland had close industrial ties because this titanic hammerhead crane is Scottish, one of the last ten operational Titan Cranes in the world.

Taken during a public walking tour Nov. 22, 2015.

What begins as a story about an old crane near the road seen to and from the way to work is actually one of ambitious naval expansion, Scottish engineering and a man who took a risk on samurai seeking to start a revolution half a century prior. Then there’s beer.

The crane was erected at the dawn of the Taisho era (1912-1926) but its roots go back to the establishment of a naval shipyard along with the Sasebo Chinjufu (naval district) in 1889. Unable to meet the fleet’s repair needs during the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) it began expanding and was reorganized as the Sasebo Naval Arsenal on Nov. 5, 1903. The most ambitious project for the shipyard and naval base would the creation of Tategami mooring basin which began in 1905 and took 11 years to complete. So much was dredged up to deepen the basin to six fathoms (36 feet) that the reclaimed land would be used to create the Hirase peninsula and the ‘horns’ of the basin, which engulfed two existing small islands. Upon completion it was the largest mooring basin in the Orient, capable of handling nine 10,000-ton ships- anything smaller than a contemporary battleship in Japanese service. In 1913 a 250-ton electrically-powered giant cantilever Titan Crane was imported from Sir William Arrol & Co. of Glasgow, Scotland and erected at berth five of the still growing basin.

Tategami Basin / India Basin in a late 1940s postcard

Arrol & Co. was experienced in structural steelwork, particularly bridges, and as the continued use of Sasebo’s Electric Titan shows a century on, they knew how to build strong and long-lasting heavy machinery. Arrol & Co. was established in 1872 and had been building cranes since early in their history, but it was in 1907 they released their first 150-ton giant cantilever Titan Crane.

According to Geograph, what stands a Titan Crane apart from other “hammerhead” cranes is that like the titans of old they can stride the earth or at least where their rails take them. A standard hammerhead crane is stationary but shipyards required a degree of mobility to service vessels around the basin with one crane. They also only required a single operator, cutting back on the manpower needs to use them. These were cutting edge electrically-powered cranes; by comparison the home of America’s Asiatic Fleet, Cavite Navy Yard in the Philippines, was still using a coal-burning steam-powered crane which belched clouds of black smoke every time it had to be fired up, much to the annoyance of the base commander’s wife.

Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard placed an order and in 1909 an almost identical Titan Crane graced Nagasaki’s waterfront. Arrol & Co. built 40 of the 42 Titan Cranes, with Motherwell building Nagasaki’s and Babcock & Wilcox built one for Singapore. Nagasaki’s Titan is the oldest still operational.

Mitsubishi’s Titan Crane as seen from Glover Garden in Oct. 14, 2019.

Playing a role in putting Scottish cranes on Japanese soil was Nagasaki’s adopted son, Thomas Blake Glover. Glover came to Japan in 1859 when he was 21 as an agent for the Matheson trading firm, though he would soon be doing more than trading tea, silk and opium. He supported the samurai that would overthrow the Shogunate by smuggling British arms to Japan, Japanese students to Britain, helped set up deals to buy Scottish-built warships for the Japanese and worked to realign Britain with the rebellious samurai. He brought modern technologies from Scotland to his new home of Nagasaki and played a crucial role in the modernization of its shipyard, still with machinery brought in from Scotland. Later he was a consultant for Mitsubishi, the shipyard’s new owner, and likely still urging them to buy Scottish until his death in 1911.

He was also a co-owner/founder of Japan Brewing Co. and the still popular Kirin beer features a mythical beast sporting what’s believed to be Glover’s glorious red mustaches. His home, the oldest Western-style house in Japan, is preserved and part of Nagasaki’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites along with the Titan Crane.

All that to say, Mitsubishi’s purchasing of a Scottish Titan Crane likely played a role in the Imperial Japanese Navy’s decision to also buy one for its naval arsenal modernization. Except the Navy’s Titan would have a 250-ton carrying capacity, keeping it very useful for decades to come as warships continued to grow in size and weight. The first warship launched by the Sasebo Naval Arsenal was the Kamikaze-class torpedo boat destroyer Yugure in 1906 which displaced less than 400 tons. Today Tategami Mooring Basin, renamed India Basin (“I” in the phonetic alphabet) by American forces, is used by the U.S. Navy’s Commander, Fleet Activities Sasebo and Sasebo Heavy Industries (SSK) and the same Electric Titan that supported the fleet that fought in the Russo-Japanese War and the destroyer squadrons of the Great War* now supports Japanese and American warships such as San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock USS Green Bay (LPD 20) which displaces 25,000 tons. Ships and even navies may change, but the Titan still serves.

Photo taken from a Sasebo harbor cruise November 10, 2019. U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Wayne E. Meyer (DDG-108) is in the foreground.

The Electric Titan is on private SSK property and cannot be visited regularly, but it’s a giant crane. You can see it from off base, on the hillside and on harbor cruises that leave from the pier beside Sasebo Gobangai.

For a special viewing come see it early at night during December, when it’s lit up with Christmas lights!

Another image of the Electric Titan taken on a Sasebo harbor cruise on Nov. 10, 2019.

The view of India Basin from Yumiharidake (formerly Tajimadake) on Jan. 3, 2022. According to the Japan Heritage signage the significance of Tategami Mooring Basin’s construction was that was the largest construction project of this type Japan had ever undertaken and the seawater-resistant concrete technology created for it was “epoch making.”

*Sasebo sent a destroyer squadron to protect Allied convoys in the Mediterranean.

REFERENCES

Serving the Fleet by Phil D. Eakins & Thomas Smith

Cruise of the Lanikai by Kemp Tolley (Cavite Navy Yard’s crane)

250-ton Crane at Sasebo Heavy Industries
https://www.city.sasebo.lg.jp/kankou/kankou/nihonisan/chinjuhu_10701-en.html

Aberdeen-Japan Engagement Strategy
https://committees.aberdeencity.gov.uk/documents/s44385/Appendix%20One%20-%20Japan%20Strategy.pdf

Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution: Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard
http://www.japansmeijiindustrialrevolution.com/en/site/nagasaki/component02.html

Scotland’s Surviving Titan Cranes
http://www.geograph.org.uk/article/Scotlands-Surviving-Titan-Cranes#what-is-a-titan-crane

The Scottish Ten
https://www.engineshed.scot/about-us/the-scottish-ten/sites/nagasaki-japan/

The Sir William Arrol Collection
http://orapweb.rcahms.gov.uk/wp/00/WP003961.pdf