Japanese cruiser Tone

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Career

Ordered:
Laid down:	December 1, 1934
Launched:	November 21, 1937
Commissioned:	November 20, 1938
Fate:	Sunk by air attack in Etajima Bay on 24 July 1945.
Struck:	Scraped on 14 July 1947 - 20 November 1948
General Characteristics
Displacement:	15,200 tons
Length:	649 ft 7 in (197.99 m)
Beam:	60 ft 8 in (18.49 m)
Draught:	21 ft 3 in (6.48 m)
Propulsion:
Speed:	35 knots (65 km/h)
Range:
Complement:	850
Armament:	Eight 8-inch (203mm) guns Eight 5-inch (127mm) guns Up to 57 25mm AA guns Twelve 24-inch (610mm) torpedo tubes
Aircraft:	Aichi E13A and Nakajima E8N reconnaissance flying boats.

Tone (Japanese: とね Kanji: 利根) was a heavy cruiser of the Imperial Japanese Navy and the lead ship of her class. She had one sister ship, Chikuma. Tone was named after a river in the Kantō region of Japan.

In World War II she was initially commanded by Captain Okada Tametsugu. In the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 and the invasion of Wake Island her seaplanes acted as scouts for the striking force.

In January 1942 Tone supported the attacks on Rabaul and New Guinea and in February she supported the air raids on Port Darwin, Australia on February 19, 1942 and the invasion of Java. On 1 March 1942 she took part in the Battle of the Java Sea, intercepting the Dutch freighter Modjokerto.

In April 1942 she took part in the Indian Ocean raids, her reconnaissance planes spotting Cornwall and Dorsetshire, which were then sunk by planes from Akagi, Hiryū and Sōryū.

In June 1942 she took part in the battle of Midway, coming under aerial attack but sustaining no damage. One of her reconnaissance planes spotted a group of American ships at 07:28 on 4 June 1942 but crucially failed to identify them as a carrier group. Following Midway, she supported the invasion of the Aleutian Islands.

In July 1942 Captain Okada was appointed to Junyō and Captain Kobe Yuji succeeded him as captain of Tone.

In August 1942 Tone took part in naval operations around Guadalcanal. She was attacked by American torpedo planes in the battle of the Eastern Solomons on 24 August 1942.

In 1943 she operated in the Marshall and Caroline Islands, based at Truk. For most of 1944, she operated in the Philippines, based at Lingga near Singapore.

In March 1944 the Tone formed part of a squadron consisting of the heavy cruisers Aoba (flag), Tone and Chikuma, under Vice Adm. Naomasa Sakonju which attacked Allied shipping sailing on the main route between Aden and Fremantle. The only Allied ship this squadron encountered was the British steamer Behar, which was sunk about midway between Ceylon and Fremantle on 9 March 1944. Following this attack, the squadron broke off its mission and returned to Batavia, as it was feared that Allied ships responding to the Behar's distress signal posed an unacceptable risk to the Japanese ships. While 102 survivors from Behar were rescued by the Tone, 82 of these prisoners were murdered after the Tone arrived in Batavia on 16 March. Following the war, Sakonju was executed for war crimes, including the killing of these prisoners, while the former commander of Tone, Capt. Haruo Mayazumi, was sentenced to seven years imprisonment.^[1]

In June 1944 the Tone took part in the battle of the Philippine Sea.

In October 1944 Tone took part in Operation Shō-1. On 22 October 1944 she sortied from Brunei as part of Vice Admiral Shiraishi Kazutaka's Cruiser Division 7, together with Chikuma, Kumano and Suzuya. Cruiser Division 7 was part of Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita's Center Force. On 24 October 1944, in the battle of the Sibuyan Sea, the Center Force suffered eleven raids by planes from the carriers American Task Group 38.2, and Tone was hit by bombs. The next day she was present in the battle off Samar, where she engaged the American destroyer Heermann but was driven away by air attack. She escaped back through the San Bernardino Strait without further damage.

In November 1944 she went into dry dock at Maizuru for repairs; more anti-aircraft guns were fitted, and her radar was upgraded. In January 1945 Captain Okada Yusaku was appointed to the command of Tone. In harbour at Kure she came under air attack from American Task Force 58 on 19 March 1945. Sixty-nine men were killed and 93 injured. She was attacked again on 24 July 1945 by Task Force 38 and hit by three bombs from planes from USS Monterey. Tone filled with water and settled on the bottom of the shallow Etajima Bay at 34 d. 14'N., 132 d. 30'E. There is a small museum to her memory on the coast there near the port of Nakamachi. Her wreck was attacked again on 28 July by planes from USS Wasp and Ticonderoga.

Tone's wreck was scrapped in 1948.

Commanding Officers

Chief Equipping Officer - Capt. Teizo Hara - 1 November 1938 - 20 November 1938

Capt. Teizo Hara - 20 November 1938 - 15 November 1939

Capt. Shinzo Onishi - 15 November 1939 - 15 October 1940

Capt. Masao Nishida - 15 October 1940 - 10 September 1941

Capt. Tametsugu Okada - 10 September 1941 - 14 July 1942

Capt. Yuji Kobe - 14 July 1942 - 1 December 1943

Capt. Haruo Mayuzumi - 1 December 1943 - 6 January 1945

Capt. Yusaku Okada - 6 January 1945 - 24 July 1945

1 References
- 1.1 Books
- 1.2 External links
2 Notes

[edit] References

[edit] Books

D'Albas, Andrieu (1965). Death of a Navy: Japanese Naval Action in World War II. Devin-Adair Pub. ISBN 0-8159-5302-X.
Dull, Paul S. (1978). A Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1941-1945. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-097-1.
Lacroix, Eric; Linton Wells (1997). Japanese Cruisers of the Pacific War. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-311-3.