Mutu

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shipstamps
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Mutu

Post by shipstamps » Sat Aug 30, 2008 3:14 pm


Japan issued a 2 cents stamp in 1943---for use by her forces occupying the Philippine Islands—commemorating the Fall of Bataan and Corregidor. The right-hand side of the design shows the Mutu, a battleship of the Nagato-class. This vessel was laid down at the Yokosuka Dockyard on June 1, 1918, and completed on October 24, 1921. Of a standard displacement of 32,720 tons, the Mutu was 660 ft. 6in. in length, with a beam of 95 ft. and a maximum draft of 30 ft. When built she was driven by quadruple-screws, powered by geared steam turbines supplied with steam from 21 Japanese Kanpon boilers, designed for 80,000 h.p. and a speed of 23 knots. Following an extensive refit however in 1934-36 her new boilers and machinery were stated to have developed 84,000 h.p. for a speed of 26 knots. Her armament consisted of eight, 16 in. guns, 20, 5in, guns and eight 5 in. anti-aircraft guns, besides four 21 in. torpedo tubes, and she carried three aircraft, launched from a single catapult. The total complement was 1,332. In the Second World War the Mutu was in the Inland Sea, W.S.W. of Kure on June 8, 1943, when she was destroyed by an explosion, the result of an accident.

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