Pacific ships

Photos and the story

Yayoi

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ClassMutsuki class
TypeDestroyer (DD)
FateSunk. One shell hit her at Wake on 11 December 1941. One man was killed and 17 wounded. Not sunk there. Allied aircraft sank her on 11 September 1942, eight miles northwest of Vakuta Island. Not credited to one plane.
Armament (class)Four single guns and two funnels. All of them were lost.
Command
  • Kimotsuki, Masaki Captain at the Wake Island attack, December 1941; Relieved on 5 July 1942

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.

Yayoi
Shizuo Fukui, February 1927. Yayoi, with 23 on the hull. The bow number 30 is a fleet number. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Yayoi was a Mutsuki-class destroyer of the Imperial Japanese Navy. On 11 December 1941, in the Battle of Wake Island, she was under Captain Masaki Kimotsuki. Battery B, under First Lieutenant Woodrow W. Kessler, put one shell into her off Wake. The hit damaged a gun, killed one man, and wounded seventeen. She remained afloat after that shelling. She came back on 23 December 1941. Kimotsuki stayed her captain into the summer and was relieved on 5 July 1942.

Allied aircraft sank Yayoi on 11 September 1942, eight miles northwest of Vakuta Island. The loss is not credited to one plane.

The pictures on this page are the originals.