Japanese ironclad Kōtetsu

Kōtetsu (甲鉄, literally "Ironclad"), later renamed Azuma (東, "East"), was the first ironclad warship of the Imperial Japanese Navy. She was built in Bordeaux, France in 1864 for the Confederate States Navy under the cover name Sphynx and commissioned as CSS Stonewall. Japan acquired her from the USA in February 1869. She was designed as an armored ram but also carried three guns: one 21 cm (8.3 in) and two 17 cm (6.7 in) pieces in armored turrets. She had a decisive role in the Naval Battle of Hakodate Bay in May 1869, which marked the end of the Boshin War, and the completion of the military phase of the Meiji Restoration.

Kōtetsu, Japan's first ironclad warship, as CSS Stonewall c. 1865
History
Builder: Arman Brothers, Bordeaux, France
Laid down: 1863
Launched: June 21, 1864
Acquired: February 3, 1869 by Japan
Commissioned: October 25, 1864
Decommissioned: January 28, 1888
Fate: Scrapped,
Notes: Fuel: Coal, 95 tons
General characteristics
Class and type: Ironclad Ram Warship
Displacement: 1,358 t
Length: 193.5 ft (59.0 m) oa
Beam: 31.5 ft (9.6 m)
Draught: 14 ft 3 in (4.34 m)
Propulsion: 1,200 hp (890 kW) double reciprocating engine
Sail plan: Brig-rigged
Speed: 10.5 kn (19.4 km/h)
Complement: 135
Armament:
  • 1 × 300 pdr (136 kg) Armstrong
  • 2 × 70 pdr (32 kg) Armstrong
Armor:
  • main belt, 89 to 124 mm (3.5 to 4.9 in)
  • turrets, 124 mm (4.9 in)
Notes: sister ship: SMS Prinz Adalbert

Her sister ship Cheops was sold to the Prussian Navy, becoming SMS Prinz Adalbert.

Design
Plan of Sphynx

The design for Sphynx was based on an armored brig with two masts and a wooden hull. Due to the unreliability of early steam engines, the ship was designed to be fully operational under sail, with a total sail area of 750 square meters. Two rudders were fitted side by side to control the vessel and ensure good maneuverability, owing to the fact that its seven-meter iron naval ram was its primary offensive weapon.

Sphynx was 55.7 meters (182 ft 9 in) long at the waterline and 59 m (193 ft 7 in) long overall. She had a beam of 10 m (32 ft 10 in) and a draft of 5.3 m (17 ft 5 in). She was designed to displace 1,358.4 metric tons (1,336.9 long tons) at a normal load and up to 1,800 t (1,800 long tons) at combat load. The ship's hull was constructed from transverse frames, and included both iron and timber. The hull was sheathed in copper to protect it from parasites and biofouling and it featured a pronounced tumblehome.

The main battery consisted of one 300-pound muzzle-loading Armstrong gun (27.9 cm) located on the bow in a single mount. This gun fired a shell weighing 136 kg. A 70-pound Armstrong muzzle-loading rifle (12.7 cm) was mounted on the center of the hull with a single mount on each side. This gun could fire shells weighing 32 kg. However, the performance of these guns were poor, and they were later replaced in 1871 with four US-made Parrott rifles. The guns were on movable mounts to allow them to fire through the different firing ports.

In terms of armor, the ship was designed with the goal of withstanding hits by 15-inch guns. The gun mounts were in casemates which extended in wide ellipse to the front and rear in a complicated curve, and which had a thickness of 102 mm to 140 mm, which was bolted on top of an 80 mm thickness of cushioning material. The hull was protected by a wrought iron armored belt extending 1.5 meters above the waterline and 1.2 meters below. The hull armor was 125 mm thick in the center, tapering to 90 mm towards the bow and stern. Considering that the USS Monitor, which was later developed by the US Navy, had only 11-inch (279 mm) guns, the Sphynx was considered exceptionally well protected.

The power plant consisted of two Mazeline-type tubular boilers and two Mazeline-type horizontal two-cylinder single-expansion reciprocating engines driving two shafts. The engines were placed in a single engine room. Each engine had an output of 600 horsepower for a total of 1,200 PS (1,184 ihp). Each shaft drove a four-bladed screw that was 3.6 m (11 ft 10 in) in diameter, and was tilted at an angle of 45 degrees to the propulsion shaft. This ship exhibited a maximum speed of 10.8 knots (20.0 km/h; 12.4 mph) knots in a public trials and a practical speed of 10.5 knots. Based on calculated fuel consumption, the ship had a range of 1,200 nautical miles at 9 knots with a full load of 200 tons of coal.

Origins

Originally named Sphynx (or Sphinx),[1][2] the ship was built for the Confederate States Navy during the American Civil War.

In June 1863 John Slidell, the Confederate commissioner to France, asked Emperor Napoleon III in a private audience if it would be possible for the Confederate government to build ironclad warships in France. Arming ships of war for a recognized belligerent like the Confederate States would have been illegal under French law, but Slidell and Confederate agent James D. Bulloch were confident that the Emperor of France would be able to circumvent his own laws more easily than other potential secret contractors. Napoleon III agreed to the building of ironclads in France on the condition that their destination remain a secret.[3] The following month Bulloch entered a contract with Lucien Arman, an important French shipbuilder and a personal confidant of Napoleon III, to build a pair of ironclad rams capable of breaking the Union blockade. To avoid suspicion, the ships' guns were manufactured separately from the ship herself and the pair were named Cheops and Sphynx to encourage rumors that they were intended for the Egyptian Navy.[4]

Prior to delivery, however, a shipyard clerk walked into the U.S. Minister's office in Paris and produced documents which revealed that Arman had fraudulently obtained authorization to arm the ships and was in contact with Confederate agents.[5] The French government blocked the sale under pressure from the United States, but Arman was able to sell the ships illegally to Denmark and Prussia, which were then fighting on opposite sides of the Second Schleswig War. Cheops was sold to Prussia as Prinz Adalbert, while Sphynx was sold to Denmark under the name Stærkodder.

Manned by a Danish crew, the ship left Bordeaux for its shakedown cruise on June 21, 1864. The crew tested the vessel while final negotiations were being conducted between the Danish Naval Ministry and L'Arman. Intense haggling over the final price and a disagreement over compensation from Arman for cited problems and late delivery led to negotiations breaking down on October 30. The Danish government refused to relinquish the vessel, claiming confusion in regards to the negotiations.[6][7]

American career as CSS Stonewall
View of bow
Profile view
Closeup

On January 6, 1865 the vessel took on a Confederate crew at Copenhagen under the command of Captain Thomas Jefferson Page, CSN[8] and was recommissioned CSS Stonewall while still at sea.[6]

The arrival of the "formidable" Stonewall in America was dreaded by the Union, and several ships tried to intercept her, among them USS Kearsarge and USS Sacramento. Stonewall sprang a leak, however, after picking up supplies and additional crew at Quiberon, Brittany and Captain Page made for Spain in order to undertake repairs. In February and March, USS Niagara and Sacramento kept watch from a distance as Stonewall lay anchored off A Coruña during February 1865. On March 24 Captain Page put out to sea, challenging the U.S. Navy vessels, which turned and fled, fearful of engaging the ironclad. Finding that the enemy had run, Captain Page steamed for Lisbon, intending to cross the Atlantic Ocean from there and attack at Port Royal, South Carolina, the base of Major General Sherman's attack on South Carolina.[8]

Stonewall reached Nassau on May 6, and then sailed on to Havana, Cuba, where Captain Page learned of the war's end. There he decided to turn her over to the Spanish Captain General of Cuba for the sum of $16,000.[9] The vessel was then turned over to United States authorities in return for reimbursement of the same amount.[10] She was temporarily de-commissioned, stationed at a U.S. Navy dock, until she was offered for sale to the Japanese government of the Tokugawa shogunate.

Japanese career
For other ships with the same name, see Japanese ship Azuma.
Kōtetsu leading the line of battle, at the Naval Battle of Hakodate.

Acquisition

In 1867, acting envoy Ono Tomogoro of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan made a formal offer to the United States government for the purchase of the USS Stonewall to reinforce the ongoing modernization of its army and navy. He made a payment of US$30,000 in advance, with the remaining US$10,000 to be paid on delivery. The ship was renamed Kōtetsu, and arrived in Shinagawa port in April 1868,[11] However, by the time of her arrival, the Boshin War between the shogunate and pro-Imperial forces had begun, and the United States took a neutral stance, which included stopping the delivery of military material, including the delivery of Kōtetsu, to the Shogunate. The ship had actually arrived under a Japanese flag, but US Resident-Minister Robert B. Van Valkenburg ordered her put back under the American flag on arrival in Japan with a caretaker crew of the US naval squadron then stationed there.[12] Kōtetsu was finally delivered to the new Meiji government in February 1869.

Boshin War

In the meantime, Tokugawa admiral Enomoto Takeaki refused to surrender his warships after the surrender of Edo Castle to the new government, and escaped to Hakodate in Hokkaido with the remainder of the Tokugawa Navy and a handful of French military advisers and their leader Jules Brunet. His fleet of eight steam warships was the strongest in Japan at the time. On 27 January 1869, Tokugawa loyalists declared the foundation of the Republic of Ezo and elected Enomoto as president. The Meiji government refused to accept partition of Japan and dispatched its newly formed Imperial Japanese Navy, which consisted of Kōtetsu and a collection of various steam-powered warships that had been contributed by the various feudal domains loyal to the new government. On March 25, 1869, in the Naval Battle of Miyako Bay, Kōtetsu successfully repulsed a surprise night attempt at naval boarding by the rebel Kaiten (spearheaded by survivors from the Shinsengumi), making use of a mounted Gatling gun.[11] Kōtetsu subsequently supported the invasion of Hokkaidō and various naval engagements in the Naval Battle of Hakodate Bay.

Subsequent career

Following the end of the Boshin War, in August 1870, Kōtetsu was assigned as a guard ship at Yokohama to enforce Japanese neutrality in the Franco-Prussian War. She was renamed Azuma on 7 December 1872.

Azuma was assigned to guard Nagasaki during the Saga rebellion in February 1874[11] and in the Taiwan Expedition of May 1874. On 19 August 1874, she ran aground at Kagoshima during a typhoon, but was refloated and repaired at the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal. During the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877, she was assigned to guard duties in the Seto Inland Sea. [13] She was removed from the navy list on 28 January 1888,[13] and was sold to a civil company for scrap. Her armor plating was reused to make the boilers in the Asakusa Thermal Power Station, which was built in Tokyo in 1893.

Assessment

Kōtetsu was well-armed with casemated guns, and considered a "formidable" and "unsinkable" ship in her time. She could sustain direct hits without her armour being pierced, and prevail against any wooden warship. In effect, Japan was thus equipped with advanced ironclad warships only ten years after the launch of the first ocean-going ironclad warship in history, the French Navy's Gloire, which was launched in 1859.

See also

Notes
  1. Schafer, p. 805.
  2. Register of ships of the U.S. Navy, 1775–1990: major combatants Karl Jack Bauer, Stephen S. Roberts p.47
  3. Case and Spencer, pp. 429–433.
  4. Case and Spencer, pp. 435–439.
  5. Case and Spencer, pp. 437–439.
  6. Steensen, Robert Steen. Vore Panserskibe [Our Armoured Vessels]. Marinehistorisk Selskab, Copenhagen, Denmark: 1968. pp. 178–195. Steensen was a former Commander in the Royal Danish Navy. An English translation by Søren Nørby may be found at http://milhist.dk/vabnet/the-armoured-ram-staerkodder/
  7. Both the Stærkodder and Stonewall commissionings can be considered valid through international maritime law as illustrated by Captain Thomas J. Page; "customarily, a ship is held to be commissioned when a commissioned officer appointed to her has gone on board of her and hoisted the colors appropriated to the military marines." Page, Thomas J. "The Career of the Confederate Cruiser Stonewall". Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume VII, Number 6. Richmond, Virginia: 1879. Pages 263–280.
  8. Schafer, p.805.
  9. Schafer, p. 806.
  10. Letter from William H. Seward to Gideon Wells, July 18, 1865. A copy may be found in the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies. Volume 3, page 566.
  11. Letter from Susumu Nishiura, Staff-in-Chief, War History Room, Ministry of Defense, Japan, to Faith Kravitz, Eleutherian Mills, Hagley Museum, Delaware, USA dated Sept. 25, 1965, available at https://archive.org/details/KravitzNishiuraLtrJapanese/
  12. Free, Early Japanese Railways 1853–1914: Engineering Triumphs That Transformed Meiji-era Japan, Tuttle Publishing, 2008 (ISBN 4805310065) at p. 35
  13. Id.

References
  • End of the Bakufu and Restoration in Hakodate 函館の幕末・維新 (Japanese). ISBN 4-12-001699-4.
  • Bisbee, Saxon T. (2018). Engines of Rebellion: Confederate Ironclads and Steam Engineering in the American Civil War. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press. ISBN 978-0-81731-986-1.
  • Canney, Donald L. (1993). The Old Steam Navy: The Ironclads, 1842–1885. 2. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-586-8.
  • Case, Lynn M. and Warren F. Spencer. The United States and France: Civil War Diplomacy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1970.
  • Chesneau, Roger; Kolesnik, Eugene M., eds. (1979). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. Greenwich, UK: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-8317-0302-4.
  • Jentschura, Hansgeorg; Jung, Dieter; Mickel, Peter (1977). Warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1869–1945. Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute. ISBN 0-87021-893-X.
  • Olmstead, Edwin; Stark, Wayne E.; Tucker, Spencer C. (1997). The Big Guns: Civil War Siege, Seacoast, and Naval Cannon. Alexandria Bay, New York: Museum Restoration Service. ISBN 0-88855-012-X.
  • Scharf, J. Thomas (1977). History of the Confederate States Navy From its Organization to the Surrender of its Last Vessel (Reprint of the 1887 ed.). New York: Fairfax Press. ISBN 0-51723-913-2.
  • Silverstone, Paul H. (2006). Civil War Navies 1855–1883. The U.S. Navy Warship Series. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-97870-X.
  • Still, William N. Jr. (1985). Iron Afloat: The Story of the Confederate Armorclads (Reprint of the 1971 ed.). Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 0-87249-454-3.
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