The Japanese destroyer was one of 21 s built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) in the late 1910s. She spent most of the Pacific War patrolling and escorting convoys in and around Chinese waters, during which the ship participated in the Battle of Hong Kong in December 1941. Tsuga was sunk by American carrier aircraft in early 1945.
The Momi class was designed with higher speed and better seakeeping than the preceding second-class destroyers.[1] The ships had an overall length of 280feet and were 275feet between perpendiculars. They had a beam of 26feet, and a mean draft of 8feet. The Momi-class ships displaced 850lk=onNaNlk=on at standard load and 1020LT at deep load.[2] Tsuga was powered by two Parsons geared steam turbines, each driving one propeller shaft using steam provided by three Kampon water-tube boilers.[3] The turbines were designed to produce 21500shp to give the ships a speed of 36kn. The ships carried a maximum of 275LT of fuel oil which gave them a range of 3000nmi at . Their crew consisted of 110 officers and crewmen.[4]
The main armament of the Momi-class ships consisted of three 12adj=onNaNadj=on Type 3 guns in single mounts; one gun forward of the well deck, one between the two funnels, and the last gun atop the aft superstructure. The guns were numbered '1' to '3' from front to rear. The ships carried two above-water twin sets of 533adj=onNaNadj=on torpedo tubes; one mount was in the well deck between the forward superstructure and the bow gun and the other between the aft funnel and aft superstructure.[2]
Tsuga, built at the Ishikawajima shipyard in Tokyo, was laid down on 5 March 1919, launched on 17 April 1920 and completed on 20 July 1920.[5]
At the start of the Pacific War on 7 December 1941, Tsuga was assigned to the China Area Fleet with two of her sister ships, and . She supported the invasion of Hong Kong in December 1941 and then began convoy escort and patrolling off the Chinese coast. The ship was sunk by carrier aircraft from Task Force 38 during its South China Sea raid on 15 January 1945 at coordinates .[6]