3506 JAPANESE GUNBOAT FUSHIMI 1941

Fushimi was a Japanese river gunboat, under which the keel was laid in 1938, launched in March 1939, and commissioned in the Imperial Japanese Navy in July of the same year. The total length of the ship at the time of launching was 50.3 m, width 9.8 m, and the displacement reached 350 tons. The maximum speed, in turn, did not exceed 17 knots. The ship was armed with a single 80mm gun and a 25mm Type 96 anti-aircraft gun. Fushimi was created as part of the fleet expansion program in 1937 and from the beginning it was designed as a relatively fast vessel designed to operate on rivers - in the great Chinese rivers, by definition. Soon after being put into service, she was directed to Chinese waters, and from April 1940 to April of the following year she performed patrol functions on the Yangtze River. After repairs in the summer of 1941, it operated from the Nanjing base in October of that year, supporting the Japanese army's operations on the Yangtze River. In 1942, its anti-aircraft weaponry was significantly expanded, and in November 1944 it survived its first air attack, although it suffered damage as a result. Luckily it survived the end of the war, and in 1945 it was taken over by the Kuomintang army.