Qualla: Japanese Cruiser Yoshino

Japanese Cruiser Yoshino: Introduction

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. She was killed by a design feature her own builders had insisted upon. The Japanese cruiser Yoshino, the fastest warship afloat when she entered service in 1893, survived the furious naval battles of the First Sino-Japanese War only to be rammed and sunk during the Russo-Japanese War by a friendly ship, the armored cruiser Kasuga. The ram that pierced Yoshino's hull was the same type of reinforced prow that Yoshino herself carried, a weapon that naval architects of the 1890s considered essential and that Yoshino's loss would help make obsolete.

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Image: Public domain

Japanese Cruiser Yoshino: Elswick's Finest

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown photographer of the time, Public domain. Yoshino was built at the Armstrong Whitworth shipyards in Elswick, England, designed by Sir Philip Watts as an improved version of the Argentine Navy cruiser Veinticinco de Mayo. Named for the Yoshino mountains in Nara Prefecture, she was laid down in February 1892, launched that...

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Image: Unknown photographer of the time | Public domain

Japanese Cruiser Yoshino: First Blood off Korea

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Synyan (talk), CC BY 3.0. Yoshino drew blood before war was even declared. On 25 July 1894, she was part of a Japanese squadron that encountered two ships of the Chinese Beiyang Fleet off the Korean coast in the Yellow Sea. The Chinese cruiser Guangyi and gunboat had sortied from Asan to escort reinforcem...

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Image: Synyan (talk) | CC BY 3.0

Japanese Cruiser Yoshino: The Flying Squadron

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. After the formal declaration of war, Yoshino continued to serve as the speed-built spearhead of the Japanese fleet. At the Battle of the Yalu River on 17 September 1894, the largest naval engagement of the First Sino-Japanese War, she served as flagship for Admiral Tsuboi Kozo's ...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Japanese Cruiser Yoshino: Killed by Friendly Fire

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Yoshino survived the First Sino-Japanese War and served through the following decade of Japanese naval expansion. When the Russo-Japanese War began in 1904, she returned to combat. But her end came not from enemy action. In dense fog, the Japanese armored cruiser Kasuga collided ...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain