However, Mutsuki met her fate the following day, after an American B-17 Flying Fortress bomber managed a direct hit on the ship’s mid section during the Battle of the Eastern Solomons. Following the invasion, Mutsuki took part in many more major operations in the Pacific, such as the invasions in the Solomon Islands, New Guinea and Rabaul, while also participating in the Battle of the Coral Sea in 1942.Īfter undergoing repairs in July 1942, Mutsuki was reassigned to the 8th Fleet and participated in the bombardment of Henderson Field on 24 August 1942. The first battle involving the destroyer during WWII was the invasion of Wake Island. Mutsuki’s combat record began with the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War between China and Japan in the early 1930s. The ship was initially commissioned under the name Destroyer No.19, only receiving the name ‘Mutsuki’ in August 1928. Mutsuki, the lead ship of her class, was laid down in May 1924 at the Sasebo Naval Arsenal shipyard and was completed in March 1926.
Nonetheless, Mutsuki-class destroyers still had a prolific service life during WW2, even in the later stages when most were converted into transport vessels.
Although intended as an improvement over the preceding Kamikaze-class, the Mutsuki-class would become outdated the moment it entered service due to the fact that the even more advanced Fubuki-class was developed in parallel. One such design was the Mutsuki-class destroyers, developed in the early 1920s. As the Washington Naval Treaty entered effect, where it substantially limited the quantity of naval weaponry available to the signatory nations, Japan began developing more advanced naval designs to better parry the might of the U.S.
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