Firing from 6,200 meters out, the Japanese battleships made many direct hits on the Russian Flagship Knyaz Suvorov. Admiral Rozhestvensky was mortally wounded as his flagship sank. As the battle continued, the new Russian battleships Borodino and Imperator Alexander III were also sunk. By early evening, the nucleus of the Russian fleet had been destroyed while, in comparison, little influential damage had been inflicted upon the Japanese.
On the night of the 27th, Togo launched the largest night attack of modern warships to date, involving 37 torpedo boats and 21 destroyers. Sailing into, and between, the Russian ships, they attacked with torpedoes and exploding shells for approximately three hours. The battleship Navarin was sunk and the battleship Sisoy Veliki was put out of action. Two Russian armored cruisers were crippled and then scuttled after dawn. All 21 Japanese destroyers returned while 3 of the 37 torpedo boats were sunk in the attack. At dawn, Togo moved in with his fleet to engage the remaining fragments of the Russian fleet. With only six ships left, Admiral Nebogatov hoisted the white flag of surrender at 10:34 AM. Some Russian ships chose not to surrender, requiring Togo's fleet to hunt them down.
The Battle of Tsushima was the only decisive fleet action fought by steel battleships. The Russian fleet was utterly destroyed with 21 ships sunk, 6 captured, 3 having escaped to Vladivostok and 6 others interned when they escaped to neutral ports. Russian crews lost 4,380 killed and 5,917 captured. Japanese losses were relatively light with 3 torpedo boats sunk, 117 killed and 583 wounded. In the wake of Tsushima, Russia was forced to sue for peace. Combined with the defeat in China, the defeat of the Russians at the battle Tsushima propelled Japan as a world naval power and, in turn, diminished Russia as an international naval power. Japan's presence as such would continue until the end of World War 2 in 1945.
Mikasa had her main guns mounted across armored turrets in centralized positions allowing for the rest of the ship to be evenly protected with heavy, thick German Krupp armor steel plates. This arrangement allowed Mikasa to withstand twenty direct hits during the Battle of the Yellow Sea and around thirty hits during the Battle of Tsushima with only minimal damage recorded on both occasions. The firepower and the longer range of the 12-inch (305mm) guns of the Mikasa were manned by highly-trained and motivated Japanese sailors. The accurate gunfire was primarily due to the modern British-built rangefinders developed by Barr and Stroud of Glasgow coupled with expert training. The modern radio equipment used on the Japanese ships also proved superior to the radios on the Russian fleet and made for excellent communications between involved ships during the heat of battle.
In September of 1905, the war with Russia was over and, while anchored in Sasebo Harbor, a fire broke out near a powder magazine on the Mikasa, causing an explosion killing 339 crewmen and injuring another 300 men - the ship sank in 36 feet of water. While severely damaged, the Mikasa was floated on August 8th, 1906 and towed to Maizuru Naval Arsenal for repair. The decision was made to restore the Mikasa - an expensive venture taking two years and requiring the replacement of her corroded 12-inch x 40-calibre main guns for newer, more powerful 12-inch x 45-calibre guns. Some felt the decision a poor one with the ground-breaking development in Britain of the battleship HMS Dreadnought in 1906. HMS Dreadnought instantly made all previous steel warship designs obsolete with her balance of speed, armor and firepower. Mikasa was restored to active service in 1908 and, as she left the yard, she was derated to a second class battleship. By the time of World War 1 in 1914, she was further demoted to a third class battleship. During the conflict, Mikasa's mission turned to patrol and coastal defense of home waters near the naval yard of Maizuru from 1914-18.
Rated as a First Class Coast Defense Vessel, she took part in the Japanese intervention in Siberia in 1921. Mikasa was ordered to patrol near Vladivostok by western forces, as part of a larger force, to support the White Russian forces against the Bolshevik Red Army during the Russian Civil War. While on patrol off Vladivostok, she ran aground near Askold Island on September 17th, 1921. She was refloated when the IJN Fuji, IJN Kasuga, and the IJN Yodo arrived and assisted her to the port of Vladivostok for repair. Once repairs were completed she was ordered to return to her home port of Maizuru. Once there, the Japanese Navy decided her active service was at an end and she was placed in the inactive fleet. Mikasa was preserved as a memorial ship due to her participation in major Japanese battles, anchored put Yokosuka. The museum officially opened to the public on November 12th, 1926.
During World War 2, as the American Navy closed in on the Japanese islands, Mikasa was bombed during air raids. After Japan's surrender in 1945, American occupation forces took charge of all military ships, aircraft and equipment. Even though Mikasa was a bombed museum ship, her guns were dismantled due to the order of the surrender agreement.
For years Mikasa lay in her disgraced state, unworthy of a brave ship who had won glory for the Empire. The ship deteriorated and her condition no longer permitted her to operate as a museum ship after the war. The ship now operated as "Cafe Togo", a cheap booze-dive providing female "entertainment" to US servicemen. The club failed and the ship was abandoned by the Japanese people due to the national feeling after the war and, in 1958, the government considered cutting her up for scrap.
Some Japanese ex-military and historical persons started a preservation movement in 1958. American Admiral Chester Nimitz was contacted by the preservation committee to help with finances and to use his name to help the movement. Nimitz saw the importance of the project and, with United States participation (including financial help) along with The Japan Times, collected money for the restoration of the Mikasa. The work was completed on May 27th, 1961, at a cost of 180 million Yen. As luck would have it, the English-built Chilean Navy Super-Dreadnought Battleship Almirante Latorre, which was being scrapped in Japan at the time, provided a majority of the parts for the restoration of the Mikasa . The US returned the parts of the ship that it had held in storage after 1945, allowing the superstructure to be rebuilt. By 1962, the ship was restored to the Japanese naval tradition and forwarded US and Japanese relations.
Today the Mikasa is again a museum ship for public consumption and the last remaining example of a pre-dreadnought battleship anywhere in the world. Anchored at Yokoshuka harbor, she was named after Mount Mikasa in Nara, Japan. Ironically, the bow 12-inch gun turret points at the US Navy Base.
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