W-139 IJN ESCORT SHIP SHIMUSHU (2SHIPS IN 1)

Shimushu was a Japanese escort destroyer (frigate) keel laid in November 1938, launched in December 1939, and commissioned in the Imperial Japanese Navy in June 1940. The total length of the ship at the time of launching was approx. 78 m, width 9.1 m, and the actual displacement - 880 tons. The maximum speed was 19.5-20 knots. The main armament was 3 120mm guns, and the secondary armament consisted of, among others, 25mm anti-aircraft cannons and 6 depth charge launchers. It should be emphasized that during the war in the Pacific, anti-aircraft weapons were systematically expanded. Shimushu was the first of four ships to be built belonging to the class of the same name (ie Shimushu). Units of this type were classified in the Japanese fleet as kaibokan and were an attempt to circumvent the provisions of the London Treaty of 1930 regarding naval armaments. In the course of design work, the focus was on creating a class of ships with the simplest possible construction, uncomplicated, which were to perform mainly patrol and escort tasks, also in the waters of the North Pacific. Ultimately, however, a class of ships was created that is not suitable for quick and mass construction, requires adequate back-up facilities from a shipyard, but is successful, heavily armed and with good seagoing ability. The combat route of the escort destroyer Shimushu during World War II was mainly marked by the cover of convoys in the South Pacific and the lack of participation in large naval battles. The ship luckily survived until the capitulation by Japan on September 2, 1945, and two years later she was handed over as a war capture by the USSR, in whose fleet she served until 1959!