Japanese Battleship Kong (Paperback)

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Kong was the Imperial Japanese Navy's first super-dreadnought type battlecruiser and the name-ship of her class, which also included the Hiei, Kirishima, and Haruna. She was upgraded to a battleship rating in the 1930s and served in several major naval operations during World War II before being sunk by enemy action in 1944. In 1908, the commissioning of the battlecruiser HMS Invincible - armed with eight 305 mm (12 in) guns - into the Royal Navy rendered all of the Imperial Japanese Navy's warships obsolete, including those under design. In response, the Japanese Diet passed the 1911 Naval Emergency Expansion bill, funding the design and construction of one battleship and four armored cruisers. The battleship was to be Fus and the first of the cruisers was Kong .