Kisaragi was one of twelve s, built for the Imperial Japanese Navy during the 1920s. Retreating after the sinking of destroyer by American coast-defense guns during the Battle of Wake Island in December 1941, Kisaragi was sunk with all hands by American aircraft. She had the distinction of being the second major Japanese warship lost during the war. She should not be confused with an earlier World War I-period destroyer with the same name.
Design and description
The Mutsuki class was an improved version of the s and was the first with triple torpedo tubes. The ships had an overall length of and were between perpendiculars. They had a beam of, and a mean draft of. The Mutsuki-class ships displaced at standard load and at deep load. They were powered by two Parsons geared steam turbines, each driving one propeller shaft, using steam provided by four Kamponwater-tube boilers. The turbines were designed to produce, which would propel the ships at. The ships carried of fuel oil which gave them a range of at. Their crew consisted of 150 officers and crewmen. The main armament of the Mutsuki-class ships consisted of four Type 3 guns in single mounts; one gun forward of the superstructure, one between the two funnels and the last pair back to back atop the aft superstructure. The guns were numbered '1' to '4' from front to rear. The ships carried two above-water triple sets of 61-centimeter torpedo tubes; one mount was between the forward superstructure and the forward gun and the other was between the aft funnel and aft superstructure. Four reload torpedoes were provided for the tubes. They carried 18 depth charges and could also carry 16 mines. They could also fitted with minesweeping gear.
At the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, Kisaragi was assigned to Destroyer Division 30 under Destroyer Squadron 6 of the 4th Fleet. She sortied from Kwajalein on 8 December as part of the Wake Island invasion force. This consisted of the light cruisers,, and, the destroyers,,, Kisaragi,, and, two old vessels converted to patrol boats, and two troop transports containing 450 Japanese Special Naval Landing Forces troops. The Japanese approached the island early on the morning of11 December, and the warships began to bombard the island at a range of at 05:30. As none of the six American 5"/51 caliber gun| coast-defense guns replied, Rear AdmiralSadamichi Kajioka, commander of the invasion forces, ordered his ships to close the island, believing that the American guns had been destroyed by the earlier aerial attacks. Encouraging this, Major James Devereux, commander of the United States Marine garrison, had ordered his men to hold their fire until he gave the order to do so. After the Japanese ships had closed to a range of, he ordered his guns to open fire. They did so with great effect, sinking Hayate, near-missing Kajioka's flagshipYubari, and causing to him to order his forces to disengage. Kisaragi was sailing away from the island when she was attacked and sunk by Grumman F4F Wildcat fighters of Marine Fighter SquadronVMF-211 that had taken off earlier armed with bombs. What happened next is unclear as sources disagree: older American accounts attribute her loss to a bomb dropped by CaptainHenry Elrod that landed amongst her depth charges on Kisaragis stern, which detonated and sank the destroyer; a more recent account says that Elrod dropped a bomb that penetrated belowdecks and started a fire and that she blew up later just as another pilot was preparing to attack. Japanese accounts says that one bomb demolished the ship's bridge and that she blew up five minutes later, with the blast originating from amidships. She sank with the loss of all 157 crewmembers about southwest of Wake Island at coordinates, the second major Japanese warship to be sunk during the war. Kisaragi was struck from the Navy List on 15 January 1942. The sinking of Kisaragi would contribute to Elrod being posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.
