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Japanese battleship Hizen

Retvizan in the Delaware River, 1902
Class overview
Name: Retvizan
Operators:  Imperial Russian Navy
Preceded by: Potemkin
Succeeded by: Tsesarevich
Built: 1899–1902
In commission: 1902–1922
Completed: 1
History
Russian Empire
Name: Retvizan
Ordered: 2 May 1898
Builder: William Cramp and Sons, Philadelphia
Cost: $4,360,000
Yard number: 300
Laid down: 29 July 1899
Launched: 23 October 1900
Commissioned: 23 March 1902
Captured: 2 January 1905
Fate: Sunk by Japanese howitzers in Port Arthur, China, 6 December 1904
Empire of Japan
Name: Hizen
Namesake: Hizen Province
Acquired: 2 January 1905
Out of service: April 1922
Renamed: Hizen
Reclassified: 1 September 1921 as a 1st-class coast defence ship
Refit: 27 November 1905–November 1908
Struck: 20 September 1923
Fate: Sunk as gunnery target, 25 July 1924
General characteristics (as built)
Type: Pre-dreadnought battleship
Displacement: 12,708 long tons (12,912 t) standard
Length: 386 ft 8 in (117.9 m)
Beam: 72 ft 2 in (22.0 m)
Draft: 25 ft (7.6 m)
Installed power:
Propulsion: 2 shafts, 2 vertical triple-expansion steam engines
Speed: 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph)
Range: 4,900 nmi (9,100 km; 5,600 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement: 28 officers, 722 men
Armament:
Armour:

Retvizan (Russian: Ретвизан) was a pre-dreadnought battleship built before the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05 for the Imperial Russian Navy. She was built by the American William Cramp and Sons because Russian shipyards were already at full capacity. Named after a Swedish ship of the line that was captured during the battle of Vyborg Bay in 1790 (Swedish: Rättvisan, meaning both fairness and justice), Retvizan was briefly assigned to the Baltic Fleet, but was transferred to the Far East in 1902.

The ship was torpedoed during the Japanese surprise attack on Port Arthur during the night of 8/9 February 1904 and grounded in the harbour entrance when she attempted to take refuge inside, as her draft had significantly deepened from the amount of water she had taken aboard after the torpedo hit. She was refloated and repaired in time to join the rest of the 1st Pacific Squadron when they attempted to reach Vladivostok through the Japanese blockade on 10 August. The Japanese battle fleet engaged them again in the Battle of the Yellow Sea, forcing most of the Russian ships to return to Port Arthur after their squadron commander was killed and his flagship damaged. Retvizan was sunk by Japanese howitzers in December after the Japanese gained control of the heights around the harbour.

The Japanese raised and repaired Retvizan after Port Arthur surrendered in January 1905. She was commissioned into the Imperial Japanese Navy as Hizen (肥前) in 1908. Based in Sasebo when the Japanese declared war on Germany in 1914, the ship was sent to reinforce the weak British squadron off British Columbia, but diverted to Hawaii after reports of a German gunboat there. Hizen was unsuccessfully sent to search for other German ships after the Americans interned the gunboat in November. After World War I she supported the Japanese intervention in the Russian Civil War and was disarmed in 1922 in accordance with the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty. The ship was sunk as a gunnery target in 1924.


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