SIX-GUN RIVER

Malcolm V Lowe describes the career of the IJN Yahagi… arguably the best-known of Japan’s wartime light cruisers

This dramatic image of Yahagi under intense fire was taken during an early part of the ferocious attack by US Navy dive- and torpedo-bombers that sealed her fate on the afternoon of April 7, 1945. (US Navy)

The early stages of World War Two in the Far East and Pacific Ocean placed the naval forces of Japan (known in the West as the Imperial Japanese Navy – IJN) in an all-conquering position. Following massive initial successes, however, the tide turned irrevocably against the Japanese as the war continued and the IJN gradually lost its ascendancy. Nevertheless, the IJN was a well-equipped fighting force in the early 1940s, and among its array of warships were several modern light cruisers of which the Agano Class, formulated during the late 1930s, was of great importance.

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