IJN Abukuma

 Hello all sorry for no posting more than 2 months because exam in my school and now i will explaining simple about IJN Abukuma.

Abukuma underway, circa 1941 E13A floatplane on catapult.

IJN Abukuma is built as the 6th ship of the 5,500 tons nagara class light cruiser.great kanto earthquake in 1923 caused many damaged in uraga ship dock,so compared her sister,abukuma's  construction took two years longer. Finally on may 26th 1925 , she's completed and entered service. Her construction period overlapped with the next generation sendai-class light cruiser. During large scales training in 1930 kitakami who moved ahead collided with abukuma from port side, causing massive damaged to abukuma bow during repair , the damaged spoon bow is changed into superior double curved bow design. Among the 5,500 tons class ships , only Abukuma , Jintsuu and Naka is equipped with this kind of bow.in 1938 she is equipped with torpedo launcher tubes and becomethe first among the nagara class to be able shoot oxygen torpedoes.

Become flagships.
At first, she's positioned as the flagships of 1st destroyer squadron. The 1st destroyer squadron mostly consisted older model destroyers.this is because the 1st destroyer squadron tasked to escort the battleship in the back. This contrasted with the 2nd destroyer squadron's newer model destroyer who escort the cruiser fighting in the front line.

 March 27th 1943, Attu island campaign

july 29th 1943, she became flagship of the kiska island evacuation operations. Abukuma collided with coast guard's ship kunashiro, but she still managed to finished the mission.
by the way, during this mission Abukuma mistakenly identify an island as enemy ship and proceed to launch torpedo together with destroyer Shimakaze and scored perfect hits on their target. In total they wasted around 200,000 yen worth of torpedoes.in today's currency, that's about 1 billion yen.

Battle of surigao strait
October 25th 1944, she joined vice admiral shima's fleet in battle of Surigao strait who will entered the battle from behind Nishimura fleet. But she hit by torpedo and have emergency repair in mindanao island.
 After the repair, accompanied by ushio, she headed to coron. On the way  they're attacked by 30 B-24 Bombers. After receiving 3 hits and 4 near misses Abukuma is stopped. Her torpedo tubes explode and an order to abandon ships is issued. With her bow standing, Abukuma sank in to the phillipine's  Negron island's water. Ushio rescued her survivor and send the to manila. In present day , the second escort "Abukuma" served as escort ship in the JMSDF. Her sisters in the abukuma class escort ship are Jintsuu, Sendai, chikuma and tone. Glad to see their names are still perpetuated by the japanese for their new vessel to honor the spirits of the crew who has sacrificed for the country.

Abukuma now

                         

Sorry all for my shortcomings because i use the tab to works on this blog, because my laptop screen broke and cannot be used anymore.

Want to know anymore about Ijn Abukuma? You can oped wikipedia