Japanese battleship Kirishima

Kirishima was one of four Kongō-class battlecruisers built for the Imperial Japanese Navy in the 1910s, designed by the British naval architect Sir George Thurston as an improved version of the British Lion-class battlecruiser. Her keel was laid down on 17 March 1912 at Mitsubishi's shipyard in Nagasaki, and she and her sister Haruna were the first two capital ships of the navy built in private shipyards. She was launched on 1 December 1913 and commissioned on 19 April 1915, with turbines built by Mitsubishi under licence from Parsons and designed for 64,000 shaft horsepower and a speed of 27.5 knots. A first reconstruction from 1927 turned her into a battleship, and a second from 1934 rebuilt her superstructure and machinery so that she could reach about 30 knots as a fast battleship. In the Second World War she escorted the carriers that attacked Pearl Harbor, took part in the Indian Ocean raid and the Battle of Midway, and in November 1942 fought American ships off Guadalcanal, where the battleship USS Washington crippled her and she capsized and sank in Ironbottom Sound on 15 November.