Photos and the story

Kisaragi

Class	Mutsuki class
Type	Destroyer (DD)
Builder	Maizuru
Launched	1925-06-05
Commissioned	1925-12-21
Fate	Sunk. off Wake Island on 11 December 1941 after a bomb from a VMF-211 Wildcat. All hands were lost, including Lieutenant Commander Yoichiro Ogawa and 156 men. The cruiser records name Captain Henry T. Elrod and put the explosion at 0731. Her own record says a bomb blew off most of the bridge at 0537 and she sank at 0542, and it does not name the pilot.
Armament (class)	Four single guns and two funnels. All of them were lost.
Command	Ogawa, Yoichiro In command when she was lost, 11 December 1941

Laid down, displacement, length, beam, draft, speed, and complement are not stored for each hull, so this table leaves them out.

The armament line is the class drawing, not a measurement of this hull.

Kisaragi was a Mutsuki-class destroyer of the Imperial Japanese Navy. She was built at Maizuru, launched on 5 June 1925, and commissioned on 21 December 1925.

On 11 December 1941, in the Battle of Wake Island, she was retiring from Wake when a 100-pound bomb from a VMF-211 Wildcat hit her.

Cruiser records credit Captain Henry T. Elrod of VMF-211 with that bomb. They put the explosion at 0731 and say it probably set off the depth charges on her stern.

Her own record gives another hour for the same loss. It says a bomb blew off most of the bridge at 0537 and that she sank at 0542, and it does not name the pilot. The two accounts do not agree on the time.

She sank off Wake Island with all hands. Lieutenant Commander Yoichiro Ogawa, who was in command, was lost with 156 men. Kisaragi was the one ship Elrod's citation credits.

The pictures on this page are the originals.