Japanese Battleship Mikasa

Japanese Battleship Mikasa

Mikasa (三笠?) is a pre-dreadnought battleship built for the Imperial Japanese Navy in the late 1890s, the only ship in her class. As Japan lacked the industrial capacity to build such warships herself, the ship was designed and built in the United Kingdom. The ship served as the flagship of Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō throughout the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, including the Battle of Port Arthur on the second day of the war and the Battles of the Yellow Sea and Tsushima. She was only hit by two shells in the first battle, but was hit many more times in the latter two battles. Despite the number of hits, the ship was not seriously damaged in any of her engagements.

Less than a week after the end of the war, Mikasa's magazine exploded and sank the ship. She was salvaged and her repairs took over two years to complete. The ship supported Japanese forces during the Siberian Intervention in the Russian Civil War. After 1922, Mikasa was decommissioned in accordance with the Washington Naval Treaty and preserved as a museum ship at Yokosuka. She was badly neglected during the post-World War II Occupation of Japan and required extensive refurbishing in the later 1950s. Mikasa is the last remaining example of a pre-dreadnought battleship anywhere in the world. She was named after Mount Mikasa in Nara, Japan.