Japanese destroyer Wakaba (1934)

Wakaba on 21 October 1937.
History
Empire of Japan
Name:	Wakaba
Ordered:	1931 Fiscal Year
Builder:	Sasebo Naval Arsenal
Laid down:	12 December 1931
Launched:	18 March 1934
Commissioned:	31 October 1934
Struck:	10 December 1944
Fate:	Sunk in action, 24 October 1944
General characteristics
Class and type:	Hatsuharu-class destroyer
Displacement:	1,802 long tons (1,831 t)
Length:	103.5 m (340 ft) pp, 105.5 m (346 ft) waterline 109.5 m (359 ft) overall
Beam:	10 m (32 ft 10 in)
Draught:	3 m (9 ft 10 in)
Propulsion:	2 shaft Kampon geared turbines 3 boilers, 42,000 hp (31,000 kW)
Speed:	36 knots (41 mph; 67 km/h)
Range:	4,000 nmi (7,400 km) at 14 kn (26 km/h)
Complement:	200
Armament:	(as built) 2 × 2, 1 × 1 - 12.7 cm/50 Type 3 naval gun 2 × 1 - 40 mm AA guns 3 × 3 - 61 cm (24 in) torpedo tubes 18 × depth charges
Service record
Operations:	Second Sino-Japanese War Invasion of French Indochina Aleutians campaign Battle of Leyte Gulf

Wakaba (若葉, ”Young Leaves”^?) was the third of six Hatsuharu-class destroyers, built for the Imperial Japanese Navy under the Circle One Program (Maru Ichi Keikaku). Three were laid down in JFY 1931 and the next three in JFY 1933. The remaining six ships in the plan were built as the Shiratsuyu class.

Construction of the advanced Hatsuharu-class destroyers was intended to give the Imperial Japanese Navy smaller and more economical destroyers than the previous Fubuki and Akatsuki-class destroyers, but with essentially the same weaponry. These conflicting goals proved beyond contemporary destroyer design, and the resulting ships were top-heavy design, with severe stability problems and with inherent structural weaknesses. After the "Tomozuru Incident" of 1934 and "IJN 4th Fleet Incident" in 1935, Wakaba underwent extensive modifications on completion to remedy these issues.

The Hatsuharu-class destroyers used the same 50 caliber 12.7 cm gun as the Fubuki class, but all turrets could elevate to 75° to give the main guns a minimal ability to engage aircraft. During the war the single turret was removed on all surviving ships after 1942. The only anti-aircraft guns were two water-cooled, license-built Vickers 40 mm (1.6 in) (pom pom). These guns were deemed to be too heavy, slow-firing and short-ranged and were replaced by license-built French Hotchkiss 25 mm (0.98 in) Type 96 anti-aircraft guns in single, double and triple mounts from 1943 for the surviving ships. These powered mounts were still unsatisfactory because their traverse and elevation speeds were too slow to engage high-speed aircraft and more single mounts were fitted to ships in the last year of the war.