Qualla: Japanese Battleship Yashima

Japanese Battleship Yashima: Introduction

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. For more than a year after the battleship Yashima sank, her crew kept writing letters home as though nothing had happened. The surviving sailors had been reassigned to auxiliary gunboats but were ordered to address their correspondence as if they were still serving aboard the battleship. The deception was extraordinary: Japan hid the loss of one of its six capital ships not just from the enemy, but from its own public, knowing that the news would shatter confidence in a war that was far from won. The ruse held until June 1905, when the government finally admitted that Yashima had struck a mine a year earlier.

Image: Public domain

Japanese Battleship Yashima: Japan's First Battleships

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andrewrabbott, CC BY-SA 3.0. Yashima and her sister Fuji were the Imperial Japanese Navy's first true battleships, ordered from Britain in direct response to two German-built Chinese ironclads that had outclassed everything Japan possessed during the First Sino-Japanese War. Designed by Philip Watts as small...

Image: Andrewrabbott | CC BY-SA 3.0

Japanese Battleship Yashima: Blind Bombardment

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown photographer of the time, Public domain. In the opening weeks of the Russo-Japanese War, Yashima and Fuji attempted indirect bombardment of Port Arthur harbor -- firing 154 twelve-inch shells over the Liaodong Peninsula from Pigeon Bay on 10 March 1904, aiming at Russian ships they could not see. The results were neglig...

Image: Unknown photographer of the time | Public domain

Japanese Battleship Yashima: The Minelayer's Revenge

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. On 14 May 1904, Rear Admiral Nashiba Tokioki put to sea with his flagship Hatsuse, Yashima, and several other vessels to relieve the blockading force off Port Arthur. The next morning, the squadron sailed into a minefield laid by the Russian minelayer Amur. Hatsuse struck a mine ...

Image: Public domain

Japanese Battleship Yashima: A Secret Sinking

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit C2revenge, CC BY-SA 4.0. Yashima did not sink as quickly as Hatsuse. She remained afloat long enough to be taken under tow, listing ever more heavily as her crew fought to control the flooding. But the battle was lost. Later that day, Yashima capsized and went down. In a single morning, Japan had lost a ...

Image: C2revenge | CC BY-SA 4.0

Japanese Battleship Yashima: The Cost of Secrecy

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Japan's ability to hide the loss of two battleships for more than a year speaks to the tight information control of the Meiji-era military -- and to the geographic reality of the Yellow Sea, where the sinkings occurred far from neutral observers. The deception worked: Russia neve...

Image: Unknown author | Public domain