Japanese destroyer Shirotae

Shirotae (白妙) ("White cloth") was one of 32 Kamikaze-class destroyers built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) in the first decade of the 20th century.

Design and description
The Kamikaze-class destroyers were improved versions of the preceding Harusame-class destroyer. They displaced 381 LT at normal load and 450 LT at deep load. The ships had a length between perpendiculars of 227 ft and an overall length of 234 ft, a beam of 21 ft and a draught of 6 ft. The Kamikazes were powered by two vertical triple-expansion steam engines, each driving one shaft using steam produced by four Kampon water-tube boilers. The engines produced a total of 6000 ihp that gave the ships a maximum speed of 29 kn. They carried a maximum of 100 LT of coal which gave them a range of 1500 nmi at a speed of 15 kn. Their crew consisted of 70 officers and ratings.

The main armament of the Kamikaze-class ships consisted of two 40-calibre quick-firing (QF) 3 in 12 cwt guns on single mounts; the forward gun was located on superstructure, but the aft gun was at the stern. Four 28-calibre QF three-inch 8 cwt guns on single mounts were positioned abreast the superstructure, two in each broadside. The ships were also armed with two single rotating mounts for 450 mm torpedoes between the superstructure and the stern gun.

Construction and career
Shirotae was laid down at Mitsubishi's shipyard in Nagasaki on 25 July 1905 and launched on 30 July 1906. Completed on 20 November 1906, the ship saw service in World War I and ran aground in Jiaozhou Bay, China, on 31 August 1914 during the Siege of Tsingtao. She was wrecked beyond repair on 3 September.