page_title: Japanese battleship Hiei
section_title: 1914–1929: Battlecruiser
hierarchical_section_title: Japanese battleship Hiei / Service / 1914–1929: Battlecruiser
caption_attribution_description: English: Imperial Japanese Navy battlecruiser Hiei at Sasebo, Japan.
context_page_description: Hiei was a warship of the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War I and World War II. Designed by British naval architect George Thurston, she was the second launched of four Kongō-class battlecruisers, among the most heavily armed ships in any navy when built. Laid down in 1911 at the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal, Hiei was formally commissioned in 1914. She patrolled off the Chinese coast on several occasions during World War I, and helped with rescue efforts following the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake.
  Starting in 1929, Hiei was converted to a gunnery training ship to avoid being scrapped under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty. She served as Emperor Hirohito's transport in the mid-1930s. Starting in 1937, she underwent a full-scale reconstruction that completely rebuilt her superstructure, upgraded her powerplant, and equipped her with launch catapults for floatplanes. Now fast enough to accompany Japan's growing fleet of aircraft carriers, she was reclassified as a fast battleship. On the eve of the US entry into World War II, she sailed as part of Vice-Admiral Chuichi Nagumo's Combined Fleet, escorting the six carriers that attacked Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941.
context_section_description: On 4 August 1914, Hiei was formally commissioned and assigned to the Sasebo Naval District, before being attached to the Third Battleship Division of the First Fleet two weeks later. On 23 August 1914, Japan declared war on the German Empire, occupying the former German colonies in Palau and in the Caroline, Marshall and Mariana Islands. In October 1914, Hiei departed Sasebo alongside Kongō to support Imperial Japanese Army units in the Siege of Tsingtao, but she was recalled on 17 October. On 3 October 1915, Hiei and Kongō participated in the sinking of the target ship Imperator Nikolai I, a Russian pre-dreadnought captured in 1905 during the Russo-Japanese War that had subsequently served in the Japanese Navy under the name Iki as a coastal defense ship. In April 1916, she patrolled the Chinese coast with her newly launched sisters Kirishima and Haruna. From 1917 to the end of World War I, Hiei remained primarily at Sasebo, patrolling the Chinese and Korean coasts with her sister ships on several occasions.
  Following the end of World War I, the Japanese Empire gained control of former German possessions in the central Pacific per the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. Due to Japan's warm relations with the British Empire and the United States at the time, Hiei and other Japanese warships became significantly less active after the war. Other than a patrol alongside Haruna and Kirishima off the Chinese coast in March 1919, Hiei remained in the Japanese home ports. On 13 October 1920, she was placed in reserve. Following the Great Kantō earthquake of September 1923, the capital ships of the Japanese Navy assisted in rescue work until the end of the month. Hiei arrived at Kure Naval Base on 1 December 1923 for a refit which increased the elevation of her main guns from 20 to 33 degrees and rebuilt her foremast.
  With the conclusion of World War I, the world powers attempted to stem any militarization that might re-escalate into war. Under the terms of Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, the Imperial Japanese Navy was significantly reduced, with a ratio of 5:5:3 required between the capital ships of the United Kingdom, the United States, and Japan.  The treaty also banned Japan from building any new capital ships until 1931, with no capital ship permitted to exceed 35,000 tons.  Provided that further additions did not exceed 3,000 tons, existing capital ships were allowed to be upgraded with improved torpedo bulges and deck armor.  By the time the Washington Treaty had been fully implemented in Japan, only three classes of World War I-era capital ships—the Fusō class (e.g. Yamashiro) and Ise-class battleships, and the Kongō-class battlecruisers—remained active.
  In July 1927, Crown Prince Takamatsu—Emperor Hirohito's younger brother—was assigned to Hiei. From October to November 1927, the ship underwent a minor refit at Sasebo to accommodate two Yokosuka E1Y floatplanes, though no launch catapults were added. On 29 March 1928, Hiei departed Sasebo alongside Kongō and the battleships Nagato and Fusō to patrol off the Chusan Archipelago, before arriving in the company of Kongō in Port Arthur in April 1928. In October 1929, she returned to Kure in preparation for her demilitarization and reconstruction.
caption: Hiei in Sasebo after first reconstruction, 1926.
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