Hasegawa Hasegawa 1:350 IJNS Yahagi light cruiser

[Shar2]

IJNS Yahagi
Hasegawa 1:350

Yahagi was the second of the four vessels completed in the Agano-class of light cruisers, and like other vessels of her class, she was intended for use as the flagship of a destroyer flotilla.

Yahagi was completed at Sasebo Navy Yard on 29 December 1943 and was dispatched to Singapore for patrols of Lingga and for training in February 1944. In May, it departed Singapore for Tawi Tawi with the aircraft carriers Taiho, Zuikaku and Shokaku and cruisers Myoko and Haguro.

The Battle of the Philippine Sea occurred on 19 June 1944. Yahagi was in Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa's “Force A” to oppose the American Fifth Fleet in a "decisive battle" off Saipan as command ship for DesDiv 10's Asagumo, DesDiv 17's Urakaze, Isokaze and Tanikaze, DesDiv 61's Wakatsuki, Hatsuzuki, Akizuki and Shimotsuki, screening the aircraft carriers. On 19 June 1944 the Mobile Fleet's aircraft attacked USN Task Force 58, but suffer overwhelming aircraft losses in the "Great Mariana's Turkey Shoot". Yahagi and Urakaze rescued 570 crewmen from the carrier Shokaku after it was torpedoed by USS Cavalla.

After dry dock and refitting at Kure from late June – early July 1944, Yahagi was fitted with two additional triple-mount Type 96 25 mm AT/AA Gun mounts amidships (bringing its total to 48 barrels) and a Type 13 air-search and a Type 22 surface-search radar set. On 8 July 1944, Yahagi departed Kure with troops, and numerous battleships, cruisers and destroyers to return to Singapore.

On 22 October 1944, Yahagi was in the Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Second Section of Force "A" of Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita's First Mobile Striking Force: (Center Force), commanding DesRon 10's DesDiv 2's Kiyoshimo, DesDiv 4's Nowaki and DesDiv 17's Urakaze, Yukikaze, Hamakaze and Isokaze. It is accompanied by battleships Kongo and the Haruna and cruisers Tone, Chikuma, Kumano and Suzuya. During the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea on 24 October 1944, the fleet endures 11 raids by over 250 Task Force 38 carrier aircraft from the USS Enterprise (CV-6), USS Essex (CV-9), USS Intrepid (CV-11), USS Franklin (CV-13), USS Lexington (CV-16) and USS Cabot (CVL-28). Although Japanese battleship Musashi was sunk and Yamato and Nagato were hit, Yahagi was unscathed. Likewise in the Battle off Samar on 25 October 1944, Yahagi fought its way through the battle without damage. On 26 October 1944, Force A was attacked by 80 carrier aircraft off Panay, followed by 30 USAAF B-24 Liberator heavy bombers and an additional 60 carrier-based aircraft. Throughout these attacks Yahagi was not hit and returned to Brunei safely.

On 16 November 1944, DesRon 10 was deactivated and Yahagi was assigned as the flagship of Rear Admiral Komura Keizo's new DesRon 2. Yahagi was ordered back to Japan on the same day for refit. It remained in Japanese home waters until March 1945. On 6 April 1945, Yahagi received orders for "Operation Ten-Go", to attack the American invasion force on Okinawa. Yahagi was ordered to accompany Yamato from Tokushima for its final suicide mission against the American fleet. At 1220 on 7 April 1945 the Yamato force was attacked by waves of 386 aircraft (180 fighters, 75 bombers, 131 torpedo planes) from Task Force 58. At 12:46, a torpedo hit Yahagi directly in her engine room, killing the entire engineering room crew and bringing her to a complete stop. Dead in the water, Yahagi was hit by at least six more torpedoes and 12 bombs by succeeding waves of air attacks. Japanese destroyer Isokaze attempted to come to Yahagi's aid but was attacked, heavily damaged, and sank sometime later. Yahagi capsized and sank at 14:05 at 30°47′N 128°08′E taking 445 crewmen with her. Rear Admiral Komura and Captain Tameichi Hara were among the survivors rescued by Hatsushimo and Yukikaze. Her survivors could see the Yamato in the distance, still steaming south as U.S. aircraft continued their attacks. However, in reality, Yamato was only minutes away from sinking.

Yahagi was removed from the Navy List on 20 June 1945.

The Model
The kit comes in the standard Hasegawa style box with a great artists rendition of the Yahagi at sea on the Japanese Navy’s last mission. Inside the two hull parts are mounted on a separate “shelf”, on which there is also a rolled up poster of the cover art. Pulling the shelf out, the modeller is confronted with eleven sprues of grey styrene and one of clear. There is also a nice decal sheet, a sheet of self adhesive flags and a length of metal anchor chain. The parts are beautifully moulded with some exquisite detail, no sign of flash, just quite a few moulding pips, particularly on the smaller parts. Some are on quite fragile pipework which will need some care to remove and clean up. Since the Yahagi is the sister ship to the IJN cruiser Agano, reviewed HERE the majority of the parts are the same as is the build, therefore it seems a little disingenuous to repeat myself here. Suffice it to say that the kit will build into a very nice model.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As with the Agano there are several detail sets available from Hasegawa which would have been nicer to have them included as they are rather expensive, but make the model into a real stunner. These sets for the Yahagi are the same as those for the Agano and have also been reviewed on this site HERE The ship can only be built full hull with no option of water lining it without major surgery, which may be a problem for some modellers.

Decals
The decal sheet provides a full set of insignia for the two aircraft, plus range of markings for the ship. The decals are well printed and in good register. They are slightly matt and should settle down pretty well with softener and setting solution, as experienced on other ship models from Hasegawa. Whilst there are flags included on the decal sheet, there is also a sheet of self adhesive flags which are a lot stronger and will last longer on the completed model.

 

Conclusion
Whilst this is almost a complete re-release of the IJNS Agano there are enough parts to make it different. With the ships history, being part of the Last Mission, it will make an interesting addition to any collection. Just a shame that the etch detail sets aren’t included in the box as they really do make a difference.

 

Amerang Hasegawa Review sample courtesy of
UK distributors for

[prowler0000]

Nice review, Dave! Quite fancy this one now....

Do Hasegawa do a wooden deck for her?

[Shar2]

These ships had linoleum not wood on their decks.

[zed]

She didn't have a wooden deck, it was linoleum which is a browny-maroon colour. Tamiya TS-69 is a good match.

[Antoine]

Thanks for the review.

I was thinking about getting me Agano.

This one has been just released?

Didn't saw it come.

[baldrick]

Very nice review, how much would it cost and who is the supplier??

[Shar2]

Baldrick. you can get it from Hannants or White Ensign and sells for around £107.

http://www.hannants.co.uk/product/HAZ026

[Antoine]

Or maybe wait for Noshiro?

Same class, isn't it???

[Shar2]

Yes it is Antoine. Why not buy all three and form their own light cruiser squadron?

[stravinsk75]

The separate long porthole "strips" inserts into the hull, to cover variantions in the class (all four of them, two of them in front two in the back), are an extremely unusual hull feature which fits poorly, with the joints right next to the porthole "eyebrows". What's worse is that Hasegawa chose to not make the join in-between their super-fine panel lines, but right on them: A terrible idea, because the excellent fine engraving is suddenly interrupted by a coarse join you have to preserve somehow...

The kit is extraordinarily good otherwise. But the joins will show and can easily look terrible, or wipe off porthole details.

Jean