 Asahi at anchor about 1906
| |
| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Operators |  Imperial Japanese Navy |
| Preceded by | Shikishima class |
| Succeeded by | Mikasa |
| Built | 1897–1900 |
| In commission | 1900–1942 |
| Completed | 1 |
| Lost | 1 |
| History | |
| Name | Asahi |
| Namesake | A stanza of waka |
| Ordered | 1897 Naval Programme |
| Builder | John Brown & Company, Clydebank |
| Laid down | 1 August 1898 |
| Launched | 13 March 1899 |
| Commissioned | 28 April 1900 |
| Reclassified |
|
| Stricken | 15 June 1942 |
| Fate | Torpedoed and sunk by USS Salmon, 25/26 May 1942 |
| General characteristics (as built) | |
| Type | Pre-dreadnought battleship |
| Displacement | 15,200 long tons (15,400 t) (normal) |
| Length | 425 ft 3 in (129.6 m) |
| Beam | 75 ft (22.9 m) |
| Draught | 27 ft 3 in (8.3 m) |
| Installed power |
|
| Propulsion | 2 shafts, 2 triple-expansion steam engines |
| Speed | 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph) |
| Range | 9,000 nmi (17,000 km; 10,000 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) |
| Complement | 773 |
| Armament |
|
| Armour |
|
Asahi (朝日, Morning Sun) was a pre-dreadnought battleship built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) in the late 1890s. As Japan lacked the industrial capacity to build such warships itself, the ship was designed and built in the United Kingdom. Shortly after her arrival in Japan, she became flagship of the Standing Fleet, the IJN's primary combat fleet. She participated in every major naval battle of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 and was lightly damaged during the Battle of the Yellow Sea and the Battle of Tsushima. Asahi saw no combat during World War I, although the ship participated in the Siberian Intervention in 1918.
Reclassified as a coastal defence ship in 1921, Asahi was disarmed two years later to meet the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty, after which she served as a training and submarine depot ship. She was modified into a submarine salvage and rescue ship before being placed in reserve in 1928. Asahi was recommissioned in late 1937, after the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War, and used to transport Japanese troops. In 1938, she was converted into a repair ship and based first at Japanese-occupied Shanghai, China, and then Cam Ranh Bay, French Indochina, from late 1938 to 1941. The ship was transferred to occupied Singapore in early 1942 to repair a damaged light cruiser and ordered to return home in May. She was sunk en route by the American submarine USS Salmon, although most of her crew survived.