@Oracle
8 Jun 1943 was a lightly rainy day with poor visibility, which was not out of the ordinary for the region's early-Jun rain season; the surface of the water, however, was relatively calm. On this day, Mutsu was moored at BD2's flagship buoy No. 2 between Hashirajima and the Suo-Oshima islands. She had 1,321 men onboard, while 113 flying cadets and 40 instructors of the Tsuchiura Naval Air Group were also present on the ship. Division mate battleship Fuso was moored one kilometer southwest, while other cruisers and destroyers were also present. At about 1145 hours, she began to move from the buoy, as her sister ship Nagato, from Kure to the north, was scheduled to take over that spot at 1300 hours. At 1213, about half an hour after she began to move from one buoy to another and was at about three kilometers north of Oshima Island, her No. 3 turret and No. 4 turret magazines exploded in very close succession, sending reddish brown smoke up in the air, with the color indicative of the detonation of ammunition. Captain Nobumichi Tsuruoka might had been the first to report the explosion to flag officers, with a coded simple message "Mutsu blew up". The explosion ripped her hull into two parts; the 150-meter forward section rolled to starboard and sank upside down in about 30 seconds, while the aft section remained afloat until about 0200 hours on the next day when it sank on near even keel. destroyers Tamanami and Wakatsuki, boats from cruisers Tatsuta and Mogami, and boats from battleship Fuso arrived quickly to offer assistance, rescuing 353 (including 13 of the visiting Tsuchiura Naval Air Group members). 1,121 men perished as the result of this disaster, including commanding officer Captain Teruhiko Miyoshi and executive officer Captain Koro Ono.
In the early 1950s, the United States occupation administration formally returned the wreck of Mutsu to the Japanese. In 1953, the chrysanthemum crest, 1.2-meter in diameter, was raised. In 1963, one of her 14-centimeter casemate guns was raised and donated to the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo, Japan. On 20 Mar 1970, the Fukada Salvage Company acquired the rights to the wreck, and successfully salvaged her over the next eight years, beginning with the raising of the 900-ton No. 4 turret in Jul or Aug 1970, witnessed by Omi Miyoshi, widow of Captain Miyoshi; this turret is now on display at the site of the former Naval Academy at Etajima. In Sep 1971, turret No. 3 was raised; surprisingly, it was in tact and not ripped apart by the explosion. Various pieces recovered over the years were given to museums, memorials, and shrines all over Japan. By 1978, when the salvage operation ended, about 75% of the ship was lifted. In 1995, it was declared by the Mutsu Memorial Museum that there would be no more salvage operations.
https://ww2db.com/ship_spec.php?ship_id=27
