A unique calm and composed atmosphereAir Raid on Kure Naval PortCannon ExplosionAfter her construction, Hyuuga experienced three accidents.
First is in 1919, her 3rd gun exploded during exercise.
Second is in 1924, catching fire in the ammunition storage of her 4th gun.
And the last one is during training in May 1942 with explosion to 5th gun.
Her lack of enthusiasm before remodelling is probably caused by these events.
Investigation is done towards the third accident and a report movie is broadcasted to the country. But because of the lost of four fleet carriers in Midway and need to maintain air power, Hyuuga together with Ise are converted to aviation battleships.After practicing in inland sea as aviation battleship equipped with flight deck, Hyuuga is assigned as flagship of the newly formed 4th carrier division in May 1944.
But because her supposed air wing are currently allocated to other mission, she participated mostly as battleship during the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
In that battle where they lost four carriers and light carriers, Hyuuga's flight deck is installed with anti aircraft gun and by evasive manouvers she returned mostly unharmed to Kure.Hyuuga is the second Ise class battleship constructed in April 1918. Her name originated from the old name of Miyazaki prefecture. According to myth, Hyuuga country is the land where Heaven's Grandsondescended. Together with her sister Ise, both of them have auspicious name.
Ise province is where the Ise Grand Shrine (Amaterasu's main shrine) is located.Febuary 1945, Hyuuga safely returned to Japan mainland from Singapore in Operation Kita to bring back as much valuable war resources back. But due to lack of fuel, she and Ise are then used as floating gun platform in Kure.
Then during the raid in March 19th and July 24th 1945, Hyuuga, together with Ise and Haruna are heavily damaged. She hit the bottom on July 26th and stayed until the end of the war.
Despite the numerous accidents, Hyuuga never sank because of it. Although she never had a chance to act as an aviation battleship she had survived many unfavourable battles. As flagship, none of the member of her fleet are lost.
Her name is inherited by the helicopter escort ship of the JMSDF and delivered disaster relief after the Tohoku earthquake. As escort ship, Hyuuga became Ise's elder sister, but nothing can be said about it, right ?
