IJN Wendigo

### Fate

Broke free while being towed for breaking up, 1939. Ran aground off Klondyke in Nerland, 1993

**IJN Wendigo** (Japanese: ウェンディゴ) is an old Japanese dreadnought battleship that haunted the world's oceans, appearing in places that it should have been noticed and then disappearing. She ultimately ran aground on the Nerlish coast and has been there since.

## History

### Imperial Japanese Navy (1916-1939)

IJN Wendigo was the third member of the Fusō-class dreadnought battleships for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) built during the First World War. Her keel was laid down at Sasebo Naval Arsenal in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1914 with her being launched in 1915 and commissioned in 1916, with the United Kingdom offering to complete her fitting out, which was approved and she was completed at Vickers Armstrong in Barrow-in-Furness (the same shipyard that built the nameship of the Kongō-class battlecruisers). As part of the Allied operations, Wendigo was completed in time to serve in the Battle of Jutland, sustaining light damage from German dreadnoughts. After this, she assisted in several bombardments on German-occupied ports until returned to Japan in mid-1918, missing out the Armistice and the surrender of the High Seas Fleet.

Following WWI, Wendigo saw little service while surviving the Washington Naval Treaty in 1924 and played no part in the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 due to engine troubles. In 1934, Wendigo was rebuilt to the same form as her sisters Fusō and Yamashiro with a single funnel and a pagoda mast. In 1939, Wendigo was seen as not required by the IJN with the new Yamato-class under construction, so decommissioned Wendigo from the fleet on 7th December, 1939, and sold her for scrap in Taiwan. While being towed to Kaohsiung, Taiwan, for scrapping, Wendigo broke her tow line in rough seas and drifted away, with the waves too rough to reattach a tow line. The two ship broke off the salvage and left Wendigo to her fate and let the ocean finish her off.

### As a ghost ship

After the failed attempt to tow Wendigo to Taiwan, it was considered that the decommissioned battleship sunk during the storm but in 1942, a Japanese submarine reported sighting a "Fusō-class dreadnought" devoid of life or markings, believing it to be either Fusō of Yamashiro in disguise as a US battleship, but was disproven as neither ship were in the area and the ship before them was covered in rust. When the captain checked, the battleship was gone. In 1966, the rusty hulk of Wendigo was spotted off the east coast of the United States almost 30 years after she was declared "sunk" to Japanese reports. A salvage tug attempted to locate the battleship but like in 1942, Wendigo had vanished without a trace, with the salvage tug's captain saying, "A ship like a battleship that big can't just disappear without anyone noticing it." Further sightings in the 1960s were reported across the Atlantic and Indian oceans of the rusty battleship, with some reports as far as Western Australia and Halifax, Nova Scotia.

In 1968, Wendigo made her first sighting in Nerlish waters when spotted by a group of school children playing on the coastline, with them mistaking the obviously Japanese Fusō-class for an American Iowa-class, a totally different and more modern design of "super dreadnought" battleship introduced in WWII.

### Shipwrecked on Nerland

In 1993, Wendigo was reported to be drifting towards Nerlish port of Klondyke with fears that the vessel would block the harbour. However, the vessel somehow moved to the west-side of the harbour mouth and ran aground on the rocks.

## Basis

IJN Wendigo is based on a Fusō-class dreadnought battleship. Two were built during WWI (Fusō and Yamashiro).

## Trivia

IJN Wendigo is named after a carnivorous cannibal creature from the United States and Canada.

IJN Wendigo was inspired by a piece of Azur Lane fan artwork titled "KMS Wendigo" with the idea of her being abandoned warship of the Fusō-class.

* IJN Wendigo is also inspired by actual ghost ship stories of vessels breaking their tow lines and appearing in odd places.