Mikasa Historic Memorial Warship

Mikasa is a battleship kept as a memorial ship in Yokosuka. The Mikasa Preservation Society, which runs it, describes it as the oldest surviving steel battleship in the world, and it is counted with HMS Victory in Britain and USS Constitution in the United States as one of the world's three great memorial ships.

History

Mikasa was built by Vickers in Britain and completed in 1902, then sailed to Yokosuka. In 1903 it became the flagship of the Combined Fleet. During the Russo-Japanese War it carried Admiral Togo Heihachiro, and at the Battle of Tsushima (Nihonkai Kaisen, 日本海海戦) on 27 May 1905 and 28 the fleet he led defeated the Russian Baltic Fleet.

Under the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 the ship was due to be scrapped. Calls at home and abroad to keep it led the cabinet to make it a memorial ship instead. It was moved to its present site in 1925, with the bow facing the Imperial Palace, and a preservation ceremony followed in 1926.

After 1945 the occupation authorities let Yokosuka keep the ship on condition that its upper-deck structures were removed, and it fell into disrepair. A nationwide campaign began in 1958, and the restoration, paid for by donations and government funds, was completed in 1961. The bridge and main guns were rebuilt, and materials on the ship's history are on display inside.