Japanese battleship Mutsu
Mutsu about 1922
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| History | |
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 Empire of Japan
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| Name: | Mutsu |
| Namesake: | Mutsu Province |
| Builder: | Yokosuka Naval Arsenal |
| Laid down: | 1 June 1918 |
| Launched: | 31 May 1920 |
| Commissioned: | 24 October 1921 |
| Struck: | 1 September 1943 |
| Fate: | Sunk by internal explosion, 8 June 1943 |
| Status: | Diveable wreck, mostly salvaged |
| General characteristics (as built) | |
| Class and type: | Nagato-class battleship |
| Displacement: | 32,720 t (32,200 long tons) (standard) |
| Length: | 215.8 m (708 ft 0 in) (o/a) |
| Beam: | 28.96 m (95 ft 0 in) |
| Draft: | 9 m (29 ft 6 in) |
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| Propulsion: |
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| Speed: | 26.5 knots (49.1 km/h; 30.5 mph) |
| Range: | 5,500 nmi (10,200 km; 6,300 mi) at 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph) |
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| Armament: |
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| General characteristics (1943) | |
| Displacement: | 39,050 metric tons (38,430 long tons) (standard) |
| Length: | 224.94 m (738 ft 0 in) |
| Beam: | 34.6 m (113 ft 6 in) |
| Draft: | 9.46 m (31 ft 0 in) |
| Installed power: |
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| Speed: | 25.28 knots (46.82 km/h; 29.09 mph) |
| Range: | 8,650 nmi (16,020 km; 9,950 mi) at 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph) |
| Complement: | 1,475 |
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| Aircraft carried: | 3 × floatplanes |
| Aviation facilities: | 1 × catapult |
Mutsu (陸奥?), named after the eponymous province, was the second and last Nagato-class dreadnought battleship built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) at the end of World War I. In 1923, a year after commissioning, she carried supplies for the survivors of the Great Kantō earthquake. The ship was modernized in 1934–36 with improvements to her armor and machinery, and a rebuilt superstructure in the pagoda mast style.
Other than participating in the Battle of Midway and the Battle of the Eastern Solomons in 1942, where she did not see any significant combat, Mutsu spent most of the first year of the Pacific War in training. She returned to Japan in early 1943. That June, one of her aft magazines detonated while she was at anchor, sinking the ship with the loss of 1,121 crew and visitors. The IJN conducted a perfunctory investigation into the cause of her loss and concluded that it was the work of a disgruntled crewmember. The navy dispersed the survivors in an attempt to conceal the sinking in the interest of morale in Japan. Much of the wreck was salvaged after the war and many artifacts and relics are on display in Japan.
Mutsu had a length of 201.17 meters (660 ft 0 in) between perpendiculars and 215.8 meters (708 ft 0 in) overall. She had a beam of 28.96 meters (95 ft 0 in) and a draft of 9 meters (29 ft 6 in). The ship displaced 32,720 metric tons (32,200 long tons) at standard load and 39,116 metric tons (38,498 long tons) at full load. Her crew consisted of 1,333 officers and enlisted men as built and 1,368 in 1935. The crew totaled around 1,475 men in 1942.
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