A LEGACY FOR THE YUKIKAZE
I have often hankered after writing a book on the destroyers of World War II. These were the true hero ships of the conflict. No navy could have enough of them. In the case of the Royal Navy the famous Tribal-class always springs to mind, the last class to be completed before the European broke out. Afridi, Ashanti, Bedouin, Cossack, Eskimo, Ghurka, Mashona, Matabele, Maori, Mohawk, Nubian, Sikh, Somali, Tartar, Zulu, sixteen in all with the RN plus others built for the Australian and Canadian navies, served as the hard fighting front line fleet destroyers of the early years of the war. Only four of the British vessels survived it.
Then there were the older V and W classes that were more expendable and so were burdened with the heroic task of lifting the troops off the mole at Dunkirk in return for heavy losses and much damage all of which got repaired in time to repel any invasion across the Channel three or four months later.
The Yukikaze (Snow Storm) belonged to the Imperial Japanese Navy’s Kagero-class, the last such class to be completed before the Pacific war broke out and therefore the front rank fleet destroyers to fight in the crucial first two years of that conflict. As a design they were a perfection on the Fubuki and successive classes of what might be called super-destroyers on account of speed and armament.
Initially serving one half of the class as escort for the carriers that raided Pearl Harbour and the other half as part of the cover for the invasion of Java, they were drawn into the so-called Tokyo Express, as Americans called it, this being to run supplies and troops to Guadalcanal and later to other Solomon islands. In the night battles resulting their long range torpedoes dealt death and destruction to Allied forces sent to ambush them. Yukikaze was in the thick of it, as in almost every major Pacific War action. Leading a section of three destroyers she notably saw torpedoed a US cruiser force at the Battle of Kolombangara in the Solomons. She finally survived the Last Sortie of the IJN as part of the escort for the doomed battleship Yamato.
As sole survivor of her class she was allotted to China and ended up in Taiwan to serve as flagship of the regime’s navy there. An attempt was made to have her returned to Japan as a museum exhibit, once restored.
What’s now needed is a whole new fleet of destroyers and frigates supplied to Taiwan, less aircraft carriers. Destroyers are so fast and nimble, plus safety in numbers ! Their threat saved Britain from Hitler, they can do the same in a low key way for Taiwan.
