Chikuma
| Country | Japan |
| Ship Class | Tone-class Heavy Cruiser |
| Builder | Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard |
| Laid Down | 1 Oct 1935 |
| Launched | 19 Mar 1938 |
| Commissioned | 20 May 1939 |
| Sunk | 25 Oct 1944 |
| Displacement | 15,200 tons standard |
| Length | 649 feet |
| Beam | 60 feet |
| Draft | 21 feet |
| Speed | 35 knots |
| Crew | 850 |
| Armament | 8x200mm, 8x130mm, 75x25mm anti-aircraft, 12x610mm torpedo tubes |
Contributor: C. Peter Chen
ww2dbaseChikuma was a Tone-class heavy cruiser built at Nagasaki by Mitsubishi. With her large seaplane capacity, long-range scouting missions fitted her well. She was a member of Sentai 6 (Sixth Squadrion) until transferred to Sentai 8 in Nov 1939. She participated in exercises and patrolled off southern China until the outbreak of the Pacific War. She participated in the attack on Pearl Harbor, the event that sparked off the war, as an escort to the fleet carriers; one of her seaplanes flew pre-strike reconnaissance mission over Pearl Harbor before the attack. Immediately after Pearl Harbor, she sailed for Wake Island to assist in the conquest there. During Japan's conquest of the South Pacific in the opening six months of the war, Chikuma played a part in many of the key events aside aircraft carriers. She was also present beside the carriers when they met their end at Midway in Jun 1942. On 24 Aug 1942 she participated in the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, and then on 26 Oct Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, both off the Solomon Islands. In the latter action, she was moderately damaged by American dive bombers and was placed out of commission in Japan until late Feb 1943. In early 1944, she was transferred to Sentai 7. She participated in a cruiser raid into the Indian Ocean in Mar, then fought off the Mariana Islands in Jun. Off Philippines, she was attacked by submarine and aircraft on 23 and 24 Oct as she headed toward the eastern shore of the island of Samar; at the battle bearing the island's name, she helped in the sinking of escort carrier Gambier Bay, but was later seriously damaged by torpedoes. Destroyer Nowaki took on Chikuma's crew as Chikuma was abandoned. When Nowaki was later sunk, all but one of Chikuma's crew survived.
ww2dbaseSource: Wikipedia.
Last Major Revision: Oct 2006
Heavy Cruiser Chikuma Interactive Map
Photographs
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Chikuma Operational Timeline
| 20 May 1939 | Chikuma was commissioned into service. |
| 26 Nov 1941 | Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo led the Japanese Carrier Division 1 (Akagi and Kaga), Carrier Division 2 (Hiryu and Soryu), Carrier Division 5 (Shokaku and Zuikaku), first section of Battleship Division 3 (Hiei and Kirishima), Cruiser Division 8 (Tone and Chikuma), Destroyer Squadron 1, Destroyer Squadron 17, and Destroyer Squadron 18 out of Hitokappu Bay in the Kurile Islands for the Hawaii Operation, the attack on the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, US Territory of Hawaii. |
| 1 Feb 1942 | Akagi, Kaga, Zuikaku, Hiei, Kirishima, and Chikuma departed Truk, Caroline Islands in an attempt to catch the enemy carrier force that had attacked the Marshall Islands. They were escorted by destroyers Shiranuhi, Kasumi, and Urakaze. |
| 1 Mar 1942 | Chikuma, Yugure, and other destroyers sank merchant ship Modjokerto in the Indian Ocean about 250 nautical miles southwest of Tjilatjap, Java, Dutch East Indies at 1145 hours. |
| 26 Mar 1942 | Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo's Japanese First Air Fleet, built around a nucleus of five aircraft carriers (Akagi, Hiryu, Soryu, Shokaku, and Zuikaku), and supported by battleships (Kongo, Hiei, Haruna, and Kirishima), cruisers (Tone, Chikuma, Abukuma), and destroyers, sailed from Staring Bay, Celebes, Dutch East Indies to the west of Timor into the Indian Ocean with the intention of attacking the Royal Navy's bases at Colombo and Trincomalee in Ceylon. |
| 3 Apr 1942 | The Japanese fleet under the command of Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo entered the Indian Ocean. |
| 5 Apr 1942 | In the morning, Japanese carriers launched 36 D3A2 dive bombers and 53 B5N2 torpedo bombers, escorted by 36 Zero fighters, against the British naval base at Colombo, Ceylon, sinking merchant cruiser HMS Hector, damaging port facilities, while shooting down 25 British aircraft; 7 Japanese aircraft were lost in this attack. Around noon, cruiser Tone's floatplane spotted British cruisers HMS Cornwall and HMS Dorsetshire 200 miles southwest of Ceylon; 53 carrier aircraft were launched to attack, sinking Dorsetshire at 1350 hours (234 killed) and Cornwall at 1400 hours (190 killed); 1,122 survived from both ships. |
| 9 Apr 1942 | Japanese carrier aircraft attacked the harbor at Trincomalee, Ceylon at 0700 hours. Two hours later, empty British aircraft carrier HMS Hermes and Australian destroyer HMAS Vampire were detected 90 miles further south. At 1035 hours, Japanese carrier aircraft attacked and sank HMS Hermes (307 killed) and HMAS Vampire (9 killed); hospital ship Vita rescued survivors from both warships. At 1207 hours, 20 Japanese carrier dive bombers sank British oiler Athelstane (all aboard survived) and British corvette HMS Hollyhock (48 were killed, 17 survived) in the Indian Ocean. |
| 24 Aug 1942 | A Japanese force centered around carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku sailed down into the Solomon Islands with light carrier Ryujo and cruiser tone operating independently south of the main fleet. At 0415, 19 torpedo bombers and 7 seaplanes were launched to search for American ships. At 1250, the search plane from cruiser Chikuma reported sighting USS Saratoga and USS Enterprise; the search plane was quickly shot down, but the Japanese nevertheless gained an idea of the American position. Shokaku launched 18 dive bombers and Zuikaku launched 9 dive bombers starting at 1300 hours. At 1315, two bombers from Enterprise surprised Shokaku, but the torpedo they launched would fail to hit the Japanese carrier. At 1400 hours, a second strike was launched by Shokaku (9 dive bombers and 3 fighters) and Zuikaku (18 dive bombers and 6 fighters). At around the same time, Battle of the Eastern Solomons crew its first casualty when Ryujo was discovered and fatally damaged by several 1,000-pound bombs. At 1440, the first attack wave from the Japanese carriers attacked Enterprise, scoring three bomb hits (70 were killed, 70 were injured), but the Japanese would lose 18 dive bombers and 6 fighters in the engagement. The second wave failed to locate the American carriers and returned before dark. Japanese warships attempted to engage the US fleet after dark, but the force failed to locate the American fleet, and discontinued the search at 2330 hours. |
| 5 Nov 1943 | During the US raid on Rabaul, New Britain, Chikuma was damaged by a near miss from a dive bomber piloted by Lieutenant (jg) John Lucas. |
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» Attack on Pearl Harbor
» Battle of Wake Island
» New Guinea-Papua Campaign, Phase 1, Bismarck Islands
» Dutch East Indies Campaign, Java
» Raids into the Indian Ocean
» Battle of Midway and the Aleutian Islands
» Guadalcanal Campaign
» Solomon Islands Campaign
» Mariana Islands Campaign and the Great Turkey Shoot
» Philippines Campaign, Phase 1, the Leyte Campaign
Document(s):
» Interrogation Nav 82, Captain Tsuneo Shiki
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Joachim von Ribbentrop, German Foreign Minister, Aug 1939
21 Apr 2018 07:58:15 AM
In WoWS the Chikuma has no torps.