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, named after Mount Haruna, was a warship of the Imperial Japanese Navy during :World War I and :World War II. Designed by the British naval engineer George Thurston, she was the fourth and last battlecruiser of the , amongst the most heavily armed ships in any navy when built. Laid down in 1912 at the Kawasaki Shipyards in Kobe, ''Haruna'' was formally commissioned in 1915 on the same day as her sister ship, ''Kirishima''. ''Haruna'' patrolled off the Chinese coast during World War I. During gunnery drills in 1920, an explosion destroyed one of her guns, damaged the gun turret, and killed seven men. During her life, ''Haruna'' underwent two major reconstructions. Beginning in 1926, the Imperial Japanese Navy rebuilt her as a battleship, strengthening her armor and improving her speed and power capabilities. In 1933, her superstructure was completely rebuilt, her speed was increased, and she was equipped with launch catapults for floatplanes. Now fast enough to accompany Japan's growing carrier fleet, ''Haruna'' was reclassified as a fast battleship. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, ''Haruna'' transported Imperial Japanese Army troops to mainland China before being redeployed to the Third Battleship Division in 1941. On the eve of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, she sailed as part of the Southern Force in preparation for the Battle of Singapore. ''Haruna'' fought in almost every major naval action of the Pacific Theater during World War II. She covered landings of Japanese forces in Malaya (in present-day Malaysia) and the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) in 1942 before engaging American forces at the Battle of Midway and during the Guadalcanal Campaign. Throughout 1943, ''Haruna'' primarily remained at Truk Lagoon (Micronesia), Kure Naval Base (near Hiroshima), Sasebo Naval Base (near Nagasaki), and the Lingga Islands (in present-day Indonesia), and deployed on several occasions in response to American carrier airstrikes on Japanese island bases. ''Haruna'' participated in the Battle of the Philippine Sea and the Battle of Leyte Gulf in 1944, engaging American vessels in the latter. In 1945, ''Haruna'' was transferred to Kure Naval Base, where she was sunk by aircraft of Task Force 38 on 28 July 1945. ==Design and construction== ''Haruna'' was the fourth and last of the Imperial Japanese Navy's ''Kongō''-class battlecruisers, a line of capital ships designed by the British naval engineer George Thurston. The class was ordered in 1910 in the Japanese Emergency Naval Expansion Bill after the commissioning of in 1908. The four battlecruisers of the ''Kongo''-class were designed to match the naval capabilities of the other major powers at the time; they have been called the battlecruiser versions of the British (formerly Turkish) battleship .〔Jackson (2008), p. 27.〕〔Gardiner and Gray (1980), p. 234.〕 Their heavy armament and armor protection (which contributed 23.3 percent of their displacement) were greatly superior to those of any other Japanese capital ship afloat at the time.〔〔 The keel of ''Haruna'' was laid down at Kobe by Kawasaki on 16 March 1912, with most of the parts used in her construction manufactured in Japan.〔 Due to a shortage of available slipways, ''Haruna'' and her sister ship were the first two capital ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy to be built in private shipyards.〔 Launched on 14 December 1913, ''Haruna''s fitting-out began in early 1914.〔 She was completed on 19 April 1915.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Japanese battleship Haruna」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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