Japanese destroyer Yamakaze (1911)

Yamakaze (山風) was an Umikaze-class destroyer of the Imperial Japanese Navy. The second and last ship of this class to be built, she was completed in 1911. After mostly serving as a coastal patrol boat during World War I, she was converted to a minesweeper on June 1, 1930, along with her sister ship, JAPANESE DESTROYER Umikaze. On April 1, 1936 she was scrapped after 25 years of service.

Background
The Umikaze-class destroyers were designed after the Russo-Japanese War, as the Imperial Japanese Navy realized that the vessels in its current fleet of destroyers were too small and poorly designed for extended "blue water" operation.

Design and construction
The Umikaze-class ships were based largely on the Royal Navy Tribal-class destroyer (1905) destroyers. In terms of displacement, each vessel was almost three times larger than the previous destroyers in the Japanese Navy.

The ship was 98.5 m long overall and 94.5 m between perpendiculars, with a beam of 8.5 m and a draft of 2.7 m. Displacement was 1030 LT normal and 1150 LT full load. Externally, the design retained the four-smokestacks of the Ikazuchi-class destroyer, however, internally the coal-fired triple expansion steam engines, were replaced by mixed-fired (i.e. a mixture of oil and coal-fired) boilers feeding steam to Parsons steam turbines, which drove three propeller shafts. The rated power of 20500 shp gave the vessels a speed of 33 kn. The ship had a range of 2700 nmi at 15 kn.

Armament was increased over the previous classes, with a pair of QF 4.7 inch Gun Mk I - IV guns, with one gun mounted on a small shelter forward and another on the quarterdeck and five QF 3 inch 12 pounder guns; One gun was mounted on each broadside at the break of the forecastle and the remaining guns were mounted on the centerline. The number of torpedoes was initially three in unreloadable tubes; but this was quickly changed to two in reloadable tubes in operational service.

After some delays due to her turbines not being delivered until March 1910, Yamkaze was launched on January 21, 1911 and commissioned on 21 October 1911.

Service history
During World War I, Yamakaze mostly served as a coastal patrol boat and did not participate in any battle. In September 1914 Yamakaze, along with sister ship JAPANESE DESTROYER Umikaze and the armored cruisers Kurama, Tsukuba and Asama set out from Yokosuka to search for the German East Asia Squadron commanded by Vice Admiral Maximilian von Spee in the South Sea Islands. After the German cruiser SMS Emden was sunk in the Battle of Cocos by the Australian cruiser HMAS Sydney (1912), the Japanese forces in the South Pacific and Indian Ocean were reorganised into two squadrons to search for von Spee's ships, with Yamakaze joining the Second Southern Squadron, based at Truk. On June 1, 1930, she was converted to a minesweeper and renamed W-8. Yamakaze was scrapped on April 1, 1936.