Japanese cruiser Nachi

Nachi (那智) was the second of four Myōkō-class heavy cruisers built for the Imperial Japanese Navy — the other ships of the class being JAPANESE CRUISER Myōkō, JAPANESE CRUISER Ashigara and JAPANESE CRUISER Haguro. She was named after a mountain in Wakayama Prefecture.

The ships of this class displaced 13300 LT, were 201 m long and capable of 36 kn. They carried two floatplanes, their main armament was ten 203 mm guns in five twin turrets. This was the heaviest armament of any cruiser class in the world, at the time they were built.

Service history
Nachi was laid down at the Kure Naval Arsenal on 26 November 1924, launched and named on 15 June 1927, and was commissioned into the Imperial Navy on 26 November 1928. Her service in World War II started in the Dutch East Indies, where she engaged the enemy off Makassar on 8 February 1942. She played a key role in the Battle of the Java Sea on 27 February, and was involved in the sinking of HMS Exeter (68) and HMS Encounter (H10) in another action off south Borneo on 1 March.

Nachi then moved to the Aleutian Islands where she was engaged in the diversionary attack on the islands on 3 June; she was back in the Aleutians when she was damaged on 26 March 1943 in the battle of the Komandorski Islands, and was engaged in an action at Kiska in July 1943.

By October 1944, she was in the Philippines and took part in the Leyte Campaign, as part of a cruiser force under the command of Vice Admiral Kiyohide Shima. Nachi was damaged in the Battle of Surigao Strait on 25 October 1944 after a collision with Mogami.

Fate
Nachi was in Manila Bay on 5 November 1944 when she was attacked by three waves of US planes from the aircraft carriers USS Lexington (CV-16) and USS Ticonderoga (CV-14) of Task Force 38.

In the engagement, Nachi was hit at least nine times with torpedoes as well as rockets. She was broken into three parts by two large explosions and sank in the middle of a large oil slick (14.51667°N, 120.73333°W). Of the crew, 807 were lost, including the captain, while 220 survived. Nachi's flag commander, Vice Admiral Kiyohide Shima was ashore for a conference at the time of the attack, but arrived at dockside in time to watch in horror as his flagship was blown apart.

John Prados, in his book, Combined Fleet Decoded, writes that a major intelligence coup was the finding of a large set of code documents on tables and in drawers in the wreckage by US Navy divers. They were surprised that the documents were not even in a safe. It was important because Nachi was the flagship of the Second Striking Force at the time. Early Japanese radar equipment was also recovered.

The original wartime caption of a picture taken of the sinking Nachi by Lexington aircraft reads, Note by target coordinator: We circled down to 20 feet to make sure there were absolutely no survivors. Fifteen or twenty oily figures were served with .50-caliber just to make sure.

It has been speculated that a large amount of gold was on board Nachi when she was sunk, which was later recovered by American divers. However, this is a heavily-disputed and questionable claim, which is not asserted by the majority of academics, and is not believed to be the case as there is little evidence for it.