Mikasa Historic Memorial Warship - Yokosuka, Kanagawa, Japan

Mikasa Historic Memorial Ship and statue of Admiral Togo Heihachiro at Mikasa Park Yokosuka, Kanagawa, Japan.

Back in November 2024, I took a short trip to Japan to take part in a conference aboard the Mikasa Historic Memorial Ship in Yokosuka. This ship is very different from the museum ships you may be used to stateside, such as USS Missouri or USS Intrepid, but the ship has a brilliant history that stretches back nearly to the founding of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

Laid down in 1899 by Vickers at Barrow-in-Furness, Mikasa (三笠) was one of four ships built by the British for Japan. Commissioned in March 1902, she saw action in the Russo-Japanese War off Port Arthur, in the Yellow Sea, and took part in the defining battle of the conflict in the Battle of Tsushima Strait.

Mikasa suffered a magazine explosion off Sasebo on the evening of the 11th of September 1905; 251 Sailors died as a result. She sank to the bottom and was refloated a year later. Toward the end of her career, she ran coastal defense duty off Maizuru during the First World War. A victim of the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty, Mikasa was decommissioned in 1923 and upon agreement of all the signatories was allowed to remain a museum ship so long as her guns and engines were removed and her hull encased in concrete.

Mikasa suffered damage during the bombing raids on Yokosuka during the Second World War and afterward became a nightclub for U.S. Sailors stationed in Yokosuka; at one point the hulk even sported an aquarium. Most of her superstructure was stolen by scrap-metal dealers, a tragic yet common event during the harsh financial realities that occurred as a result of the occupation.

In 1955, retired Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz responded to calls for him to help in saving the wreck of the Mikasa, and the ship was subsequently brought back to life as a museum. The ship as you see it today was opened in 1961 as part of Mikasa Park, which also sports a large statue of Togo Heihachiro 東郷 平八郎, the victor of Tsushima Strait and the ‘Nelson of the East’. Mikasa Historic Memorial Warship is a fantastic visit if you find yourself in Yokosuka, one of the best Navy towns in Japan. Pacific History Guide has a section on Yokosuka all to itself, linked here.