Decrease Font Size Increase Font Size
Login

Military Photos



Online
There are 1116 users online

You can register for a user account here.
Library of Congress

Military Quotes

Yes, we love peace, but we are not willing to take wounds for it, as we are for war

-- John Andrew Holmes

Tenryu (Light Cruiser, 1919-1942)

(324 total words in this text)
(1591 Reads)  Printer-friendly page
Tenryu, a 3230-ton light cruiser built at Yokosuka, Japan, was commissioned in November 1919. She served as a destroyer flotilla leader until 1925, visiting the coasts of Siberia and China as well as operating in Japanese home waters. After a year in reserve, Tenryu returned to China in 1927, during the civil war then raging in the Shanghai area. She was again a flotilla leader during 1928, then was guard and training ship at Kure until October 1931, when she rejoined the active fleet off China. The cruiser generally operated in Chinese waters for the rest of the decade, with brief intervals of duty as a training ship and in reserve. Plans to convert her to an anti-aircraft ship were cancelled in 1939, and she spent the next two years as a training ship at Maizuru Naval Station and on a cruise through the central Pacific in mid-1941.

When the war with the United States began in December 1941, Tenryu was first employed in the operation to capture Wake Island. In January-April 1942, she participated in the capture of New Ireland, New Britain, northeastern New Guinea, Bougainville and the Admiralty Islands. During the early May Battle of the Coral Sea, Tenryu supported the abortive operation to seize Port Moresby. In July and August 1942, following an overhaul in Japan, she served as an escort for transports in the New Britain and New Guinea areas, and also took part in the Battle of Savo Island on 9 August. Over the next four months, she was actively engaged in the unsuccessful campaigns to capture Milne Bay, in eastern New Guinea, and retake Guadalcanal. She was damaged by a bomb on 2 October, made two transport runs to Guadalcanal in early November and covered the 14 November bombardment of Henderson Field. While participating in operations off Madang, New Guinea, on 18 December 1942, Tenryu was torpedoed and sunk by the U.S. submarine Albacore (SS-218).

Military History
Forum Posts

Military Polls

How do you feel about giving up freedoms for security?

[ Results | Polls ]

Votes: 1813

This Day in History
1738: English parliament declares war on Spain.

1800: The USS Essex becomes first U.S. Navy vessel to pass the Cape of Good Hope.

1814: The HMS Phoebe and Cherub capture the USS Essex off Valparaiso, Chile.

1854: Britain and France declare war on Russia.

1862: Union forces stop the Confederate invasion of New Mexico territory when they turn the Rebels back at Glorieta Pass.

1864: A group of Copperheads attack Federal soldiers in Charleston, Illinois. Five are killed and twenty wounded.

1917: The Womens Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) is founded, Great Britains first official service women.

1939: The Spanish Civil War ends as Madrid falls to Francisco Franco.

1941: Andrew Browne Cunningham, Admiral of the British Fleet, commands the British Royal Navys destruction of three major Italian battleships and two destroyers in the Battle of Cape Matapan in the Mediterranean.

1942: A British ship, the HMS Capbeltown, a Lend-Lease American destroyer, which was specifically rammed into a German occupied dry-dock in France, explodes, knocking the area out of action for the German battleship Tirpitz.