Ise (whose name comes from an ancient Japanese province on Honshu, now
part of Mie Prefecture) was the lead ship of the two-vessel Ise-class
battleships of the Imperial Japanese Navy, which saw combat service
during the Pacific War.
Ise was laid down as battleship 5 at the Kawasaki Heavy Industries
shipyard in Kobe on 10 May 1915, launched on 12 November 1916, completed
on 15 December 1917, and assigned to the Kure Naval District.
Completed too late for service in World War I, Ise patrolled off the
Siberian coast and in northern waters in support of Japan's Siberian
Intervention against the Bolshevik Red Army.
From the mid-1920s through the late 1930s, Ise patrolled mostly off of
the China coast.
On 12 April 1922, she hosted a delegation which included Prince of
Wales, the future King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom, and the future
Lord Mountbatten.
Ise-class battleships were fascinating ships and their story began in
1906 with the completion of HMS Dreanought. The appearance of the
all-big-gun turbine-powered Dreadnought rendered all existing
battleships obsolete overnight, and in response the rest of the world's
navies initiated massive construction programs. The world's major navies
had gained an insurmountable lead in the number of dreadnoughts in
service or under construction. Recognizing the futility of trying to
compete in sheer numbers, the Japanese Navy adopted a quality before
quantity approach, building fewer ships each of much greater capability
than foreign designs. In 1911 the Japanese government passed the
Emergency Naval Expansion bill which authorized the building of four
battlecruisers and one battleship. The battleship was to be designed and
built in Japan; this ship became the Fuso.
There were a number of foreign designs to take into consideration when
it came time to decide the main armament for the new ships. Britain
Royal Navy's Orion class was armed with the 13.5 in. gun; the US Wyoming
class with 12-12 in. guns; and the succeeding New York class with 10-14
in. weapons. Japan decided to leap over the competition and fit the new
ships with the 14 in. gun so Fuso-class would carry 12-14 in. weapons.
Armament was not the only area where the Japanese battleship was
intended to be superior to foreign designs: it was also to be at least 2
knots faster. Fuso was laid down on 11 March 1912 and she was the first
battleship built in Japan using Japanese manufactured materials and
weapons. Three sister ships were authorized, one of them laid down in
November 1913, but financial difficulties prevented the laying down of
the next two ships until 1915, which allowed time for some design
improvements. The forecastle deck was shortened, the amidships turrets
were grouped together and placed aft of the second funnel and the hull
length was increased by 10 ft. to give more machinery space. The changes
resulted in the two ships becoming known as the "Improved Fuso" or Ise
class.
