The MOGAMI class cruiser was 661 feet long, 59.1 feet wide and had a draft of 18.1 feet. She had 10 each 8”, 8 each 5” and 8 each 25mm guns along with 12 each 21” torpedo tubes. She carried 3 aircraft. She was built at Kaigun Kosho, Kure, Japan in 1937.

The MOGAMI was the first of four cruisers laid down under the terms of the London Naval Treaty. She and her three sisters were originally designed with fifteen 6.1 inch guns in triple turrets, but these were replaced in 1939 with ten 8.1 inch guns in twin turrets. This armament was changed after MOGAMI was almost destroyed at the Battle of Midway in 1942. The two after turrets (four of her 8.1 inch guns) were removed to make way for an increased number of floatplanes.

At the start of WWII in the Pacific, MOGAMI was part of Rear Admiral Takeo Kurita’s 7th Cruiser Squadron in the South China Sea. From December 1941 through April 1942, she helped cover Japan’s eastward movement through landings in Malaysia, Java, Sumatra, and the Andaman Islands. On February 29, 1942, she took part in the Battle of the Sunda Strait during which HMAS PERTH and USS HOUSTON were sunk, and in early April, she raided merchant shipping in conjunction with operations against Ceylon.

On May 27, MOGAMI sailed from Guam as part of the covering force for the invasion of Midway. On June 5, 1942, she and her sister ship MIKUMA collided while trying to evade submarine USS TAMBOR, and the next day they were attacked by American dive-bombers from USS ENTERPRISE and USS YORKTOWN. MIKUMA was sunk, but despite horrendous damage, MOGAMI, under Captain Sato, escaped to Truk.

She saw no action until the next year, since major repairs had to be made to the ship due to the extensive damage received at Midway. MOGAMI having been refurbished, she proceeded toward Rabaul, New Guinea. On November 3, 1943, as MOGAMI was entering Rabaul, she was again bombed by American planes, this time from USS SARATOGA and USS PRINCETON.

The next spring, she was part of the Japanese fleet assembled at Tawi-Tawi for Operation A-GO, the defense of the Mariana Islands. This culminated in the disastrous (for the Japanese) Battle of the Philippine Sea on June 19, 1944, when Japan lost more than 400 planes and aviators. On October 22, 1944, MOGAMI sailed as part of Vice Admiral Shoji Nishimura’s Southern Force at the Battle of Leyte Gulf. On the night of October 24, battleships YAMSHIRO and FUSO, MOGAMI, and four destroyers entered Surigao Strait. They evaded a series of PT-boat attacks, but at 0200 the next morning, Captain Jesse G. Cowards’s Destroyer Squadron (Desron)54 launched a torpedo attack resulting in the battleship FUSO being blown up and sunk. Vice Admiral Nishimura never realized that FUSO had been sunk and kept issuing orders to the ship during the ensuing action. This was followed at 0353 by an eruption of heavy gunfire from Rear Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf’s battleships USS WEST VIRGINIA, TENNESSEE, CALIFORNIA, MARYLAND, MISSISSIPPI, and PENNSYLVANIA, which had crossed the “T” of the Japanese advance. MOGAMI wheeled almost immediately, only to be hit by cruiser USS PORTLAND. She retired to the south accompanied by destroyer SHIGURE. She was then sited later that morning “burning like a city block” when she again came under renewed fire from American cruisers and again fought off another PT-boat attack. She was unsuccessful this time in getting away, however, as she was again under attack at 0845 that morning from dive-bombers in the Mindanao Sea, where she finally sank in the sea.