Qualla: Japanese Cruiser Naniwa

Japanese Cruiser Naniwa: Introduction

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. On the morning of July 25, 1894, Captain Togo Heihachiro — the man who would one day become Japan's greatest admiral — stood on the bridge of the protected cruiser Naniwa and ordered his gunners to fire on a Chinese warship passing too close for comfort. Those were the first shots of the First Sino-Japanese War. By the time Naniwa ran aground on a Kuril Islands reef in 1912, she had participated in nearly every major naval engagement of Japan's rise as a Pacific power.

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Image: Public domain

Japanese Cruiser Naniwa: Born in Newcastle, Bound for Tokyo

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Japan in the 1880s lacked the industrial capacity to build modern warships, so the Imperial Japanese Navy turned to Britain. Naniwa was ordered from Armstrong Mitchell on March 22, 1884, and laid down at the company's Low Walker shipyard in Newcastle upon Tyne. Designed by Willia...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Japanese Cruiser Naniwa: The Kowshing Incident

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gabriel Bertram Bellinghausen, Public domain. Naniwa's most infamous action came before the Sino-Japanese War was even officially declared. On the morning of July 25, 1894, while patrolling off Pungdo Island near the Korean coast, Togo encountered the British-flagged steamer Kowshing, chartered by China to transport 1,100 tr...

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Image: Gabriel Bertram Bellinghausen | Public domain

Japanese Cruiser Naniwa: Two Wars, One Warship

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Naniwa fought at the Battle of the Yalu River in September 1894, where the First Flying Squadron helped destroy or damage multiple Chinese warships. She took nine hits during the battle but suffered only two wounded — a testament to her protective deck design. The cruiser went on...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Japanese Cruiser Naniwa: From Hawaii to Tsushima

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Between the great battles, Naniwa's logbooks read like a catalogue of late 19th-century geopolitics. In early 1893, she steamed to Honolulu to protect Japanese citizens during the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy by American marines and colonists. Captain Togo refused to hand o...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Japanese Cruiser Naniwa: The Reef at the End

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. After the Russo-Japanese War, Naniwa was relegated to auxiliary duty — survey work and fisheries protection, the quiet assignments that come to aging warships. In 1912, while operating in the waters north of the Japanese home islands, she ran aground on a reef in the Kuril Island...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain