Battle of Shimonoseki Straits - Battle

Battle

In the morning of July 14, 1863, under sanction by Minister Pruyn, in an apparent swift response to the attack on the Pembroke.

At 4:45 a.m. on 14 July, Comdr. McDougal called all hands; and Wyoming got under way 15 minutes later, bound for the strait. After a two-day voyage, she arrived off the island of Himeshima on the evening of 15 July and anchored off the south side of that island.

At five o'clock in the following morning, Wyoming weighed anchor and steamed toward the Strait of Shimonoseki. She went to general quarters at nine, loaded her pivot guns with shell, and cleared for action. The warship entered the strait at 10:45 and beat to quarters. Soon, three signal guns boomed from the landward, alerting the batteries and ships of Lord Mori of Wyoming's arrival.

At about 11:15, after being fired upon from the shore batteries, Wyoming hoisted her colors and replied with her 11-inch pivot guns. Momentarily ignoring the batteries, McDougal ordered Wyoming to continue steaming toward a bark, a steamer, and a brig at anchor off the town of Shimonoseki. Meanwhile, four shore batteries took the warship under fire. Wyoming answered the Japanese cannon "as fast as the guns could be brought to bear", while shells from the shore guns passed through her rigging.

USS Wyoming then passed between the brig and the bark on the starboard hand and the steamer on the port, steaming within a pistol shot's range. One shot from either the bark or brig struck near Wyoming's forward broadside gun, killing two men and wounding four. Elsewhere on the ship, a Marine was struck dead by a piece of shrapnel.

Wyoming, in hostile territory, then grounded in uncharted waters shortly after she had made one run past the forts. The Japanese steamer, in the meantime, had slipped her cable and headed directly for Wyoming —possibly to attempt a boarding. The American man-of-war, however, managed to work free of the mud and then unleashed her 11-inch Dahlgrens on the enemy ship, hulling her and damaging her severely. Two well-directed shots exploded her boilers and, as she began to sink, her crew abandoned the ship.

Wyoming then passed the bark and the brig, firing into them steadily and methodically. Some shells were "overs" and landed in the town ashore. As Comdr. McDougal wrote in his report to Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles on 23 July, "the punishment inflicted and in store for him will, I trust, teach him a lesson that will not soon be forgotten."

After having been under fire for a little over an hour, Wyoming returned to Yokohama. She had been hulled 11 times, with considerable damage to her smokestack and rigging. Her casualties had been comparatively light: four men killed and seven wounded—one of whom later died. Significantly, Wyoming had been the first foreign warship to take the offensive to uphold treaty rights in Japan.

The two Japanese steamers sunk by the Wyoming were raised again by Chōshū in 1864 and attached to the harbor of Hagi. The results of the battle were not sufficient to stop the actions of the Choshu clan against foreign shipping and the shore batteries of Choshu remained intact. The shelling of foreign ships continued. Foreign powers would later combine into a powerful fleet in 1864 in order to conduct the Shimonoseki Campaign, with successful results.