Japanese destroyer Ashi

The Japanese destroyer Ashi (葦) was one of 21 Momi-class destroyers built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) in the late 1910s. It was decommissioned on February 1, 1940, and converted to a training ship. It was later re-converted to auxiliary ship No.2 Tomariura (第二泊浦, Dai-2 Tomariura) on December 15, 1944, and was later modified into a Shin'yō suicide motorboat mothership in 1945. It was surrendered at the end of World War II and was finally scrapped in 1947.

Design and description
The Momi class was designed with higher speed and better seakeeping than the preceding Enoki-class destroyer second-class destroyers. The ships had an overall length of 280 ft and were 275 ft between perpendiculars. They had a beam of 26 ft, and a mean draft of 8 ft. The Momi-class ships displaced 850 LT at standard load and 1020 LT at deep load. Ashi was powered by two Brown-Curtis geared steam turbines, each driving one propeller shaft using steam provided by three Kampon water-tube boilers. The turbines were designed to produce 21500 shp to give the ships a speed of 36 kn. The ships carried a maximum of 275 LT of fuel oil which gave them a range of 3000 nmi at 15 kn. Their crew consisted of 110 officers and crewmen.

The main armament of the Momi-class ships consisted of three 12 cm Type 3 guns in single mounts; one gun forward of the well deck, one between the two funnels, and the last gun atop the aft superstructure. The guns were numbered '1' to '3' from front to rear. The ships carried two above-water twin sets of 533 mm torpedo tubes; one mount was in the well deck between the forward superstructure and the bow gun and the other between the aft funnel and aft superstructure.

Construction and career
Ashi was laid down on November 15, 1920, at the Kawasaki Heavy Industries shipyard at Kobe. She was launched on September 3, 1921, and completed on October 29, 1921. It was decommissioned on February 1, 1940, and converted to a training ship. It was later re-converted to auxiliary ship No.2 Tomariura (第二泊浦, Dai-2 Tomariura) on December 15, 1944, and was later modified into a Shin'yō suicide motorboat mothership in 1945. It was surrendered at the end of World War II and was finally scrapped in 1947.