IJN Yukikaze - Guide 363
Yukikaze, a (possibly cursed?) destroyer of the Imperial Japanese Navy, is today's subject.
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Pinned post for Q&A :)
@ar4040smith
8 ай бұрын
Japan's well deserved reputation for awful POW treatment was thoroughly documented by the end of WW2. Was their treatment of foreign prisoners always so bad? Or did it steadily get worse as the military dictatorship took over?
@some-jk4nx
8 ай бұрын
have you watched the "high school fleet" anime?
@bkjeong4302
8 ай бұрын
What would have happened if Yukikaze ended up being captured by the CCP during the Chinese Civil War? Would it have led to the CCP imploding on itself? On a more serious note how would that affect the Taiwan Strait Crisis?
@brendonbewersdorf986
8 ай бұрын
I had a sort of what if question given the Japanese actually made use of a 120mm rocket launcher as an anti aircraft weapon on their ships do you think the German nebelwerfer rockets that came in 150 and 210mm sizes and had 5 or 10 round launchers could have been used on naval vessels to? Given their large warheads at the very least they could be useful for unnerving pilots possibly especially since there is precedent for nebelwerfer rockets being used on luftwaffe aircraft to break up bomber formations
@johnsmith-kd8br
8 ай бұрын
What if war lasted long enough and germans captured leningrad and finished soviet battelships being duild there. How much of a problem would that be to britain and us
It does feel like a Greek tragedy of sorts, “I curse you to survive while all your friends perish” kind of thing.
@slavkovalsky1671
8 ай бұрын
Now that you mention this, Ulysses (Odysseus) comes to mind. Also a sole survivor out of a 12-ship squadron.
@berges104
8 ай бұрын
No kidding
@whyjnot420
8 ай бұрын
Given that she was transferred to a navy that actually existed, it could be argued that it pretends to be a comedy before ultimately morphing into a tragedy during the epilogue. note: A "comedy" by ancient standards is a story with a happy ending.
@RCAvhstape
8 ай бұрын
Yukikaze was a Highlander. There could be only one.
@ph89787
8 ай бұрын
I mean Enterprise was fueled by hatred from that curse. Given that Yorktown and Hornet were sunk by the end of 1942. Had to witness the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack and The near destruction of her Torpedo squadron at Midway
Yukikaze, "Frankly, I enjoyed the war." Every other IJN ship she 'helped' (Gurgles angrily in underwater bubbles)
@camenbert5837
8 ай бұрын
Nice Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart quote there...
@SonOfAB_tch2ndClass
8 ай бұрын
*WAHAHA! NOT EVEN YOU CAN SINK YUKIKAZE THE GREAT NANODA!*
@lawsontse1545
4 ай бұрын
@beaterbikechannel2538 *spoiler* YUKIKAZE LIVES!
@realmcb7331
3 ай бұрын
@@lawsontse1545 even though it was planned, Yukikaze still sees her buddies Yukaze and Keyaki destroyed by Godzilla...
@Dragonskincollector
3 ай бұрын
@beaterbikechannel2538 Godjira, "nah, I'd win."
It is remarkable how Yukikaze and Shigure have very simular careers and yet different impressions on people, Yukikaze "No run away", Shigure "Yes we have the lucky ship"
@augustosolari7721
8 ай бұрын
Well... Zuikaku was a lucky ship because she counted with Shoikaku as part of her armour.
@sirboomsalot4902
8 ай бұрын
Funnily enough, Tameichi Hara (Shigure’s commander for a chunk of her career) talks about Yukikaze a few times in his book, and usually it’s in a positive light
@Xino6804
8 ай бұрын
With Shigure it that no ship ever came back with her to say any different. So of course people would say she's lucky. Where as Yuki had witnesses.
@Halinspark
8 ай бұрын
I was thinking of Yukikaze vs Willie D. One did all the things and got to go home like nothing happened. The other did less and had an awful time before getting sunk.
@shadowwolf2608
8 ай бұрын
I'd say that being on the Yukikaze meant you were almost guaranteed to survive.
Perhaps the IJN should have sent Yukikaze in to be a beached fortress instead of Yamato.
@kingleech16
8 ай бұрын
At which point the island sinks and Yukikaze scoots back to the home islands.
@M167A1
8 ай бұрын
@@kingleech16leaving the Americans VERY confused.
@jimwegerer5988
8 ай бұрын
She’d beach herself on Okinawa, then a massive wave sweeps in a carries her to another island, far away from the fighting and beaches her there.
@brianreddeman951
8 ай бұрын
@@kingleech16I dunno, I think Yamato would have sunk at port from some random accident because they replaced her with Yukikaze.
@kingleech16
8 ай бұрын
@@M167A1 And the IJA very angry.
I think we've discovered the secret to the success of USN naval intelligence in WW2. The cryptanalysts simply looked for the name Yukikaze and sent the US fleet at her knowing that she would almost certainly be escorting high value targets. American flyers were instructed not to attack Yukikaze herself lest they lose their intelligence advantage.
@cdfe3388
8 ай бұрын
That’s actually exactly the kind of thing Joe Rochefort *would* pick up on!
@dustybricks113
8 ай бұрын
Somewhere in history a small bit of that might be true.😅 It wouldn't surprise me.
@genericpersonx333
8 ай бұрын
I like the idea and it would make a great short film or something, the story of a wily US Intelligence agent winning the war by his/her careful plotting of this one ship while the President and high admirals all fall over themselves to keep this critical secret safe! The drama as some ignorant radio operator accidently reports in the Clear that naval aviators are to remember to spare Yukikaze, the panic as we watch a Japanese intelligence agent realize the truth, only for his report to be tragically misfiled and he die in a completely unrelated accident. I am sure Michael Bay could find some way to make things explode. More seriously, while I am not saying it was the case, that IS a technique of intelligence services. If you know a person or thing is in a place and that said person/thing is, nine times out of ten, assigned an important job, you are well advised to account for that when making plans. However, I suspect that if Intelligence was tracking the ship, they were more tracking its class than the specific vessel. Kageros were known to be Japan's highest-capability fleet destroyers on the eve of the war, so it was logical to assume that Kageros would be focused on important fleet missions. Follow the Kageros, you more likely than not find they are part of an important fleet doing fleet things, which is exactly why Yukikaze kept finding itself in important fleets.
@jonathanlong6987
8 ай бұрын
Or they thot she was a snowflake & could be ignored.😂
@davydovua
8 ай бұрын
@@genericpersonx333 the version about them tracking all the ships of her class actually makes a lot of sense
And now add Godzilla to the list of things that Yukikaze survived.
@BlueCollar80
Ай бұрын
the fact that they use Yukikaze amazed me, there must be someone in the writing part that acknowledge her history
I think an incident with her and the destroyer Hatsushimo also deserves mention. As the story goes, the two destroyers were traversing a minefield, when Yukikaze hit a mine. But because this is Yukikaze, the mine was a dud and did not explode. Shortly thereafter, Hatsushimo struck a mine. Take a wild guess at what happened next. Edit, some more *possibly apocryphal* Yukikaze stories I've heard but cannot confirm, so take these with some healthy skepticism. -The torpedo that sunk Sendai ran beneath Yukikaze before hitting the cruiser -After the Battle Off Samar, Yukikaze was originally going to be the destroyer sent to assist Chikuma, but the task was instead given to Nowaki. Nowaki would be sunk with not only her entire crew, but Chikuma's entire surviving crew. -Following Shinano's sinking, an annoyed pilot from the carrier asked how they got to the survivors so fast, and Yukikaze's captain responded with something to the effect of "we're used to it at this point, it seems we spend more time rescuing our allies than attacking the enemy." Archerfish potentially also sailed directly under Yukikaze before torpedoing Shinano. -Some Japanese sailors called her the "God of Death" or "Plague God" -I cannot confirm this, but it's my suspicion that the order to scrap her caused the car accident which would result in a heart condition that would ultimately kill Chiang Kai-Shek. He was present for her commissioning into the Republic of China Navy, and she transported him to Taiwan following the Chinese Civil War.
@istillusezune82
8 ай бұрын
Yukikaze in her Danyang form won a concentrated attack from a PLAN torpedo boat squardron without any damage. The Soviet-designed P-6 boats attacked her at rough sea, offloading ALL torpedoes just to have them either sunk or went off course. 8 communist baots were sunk by their return fire. One of her mates (US made patrol boat) was hit and later decommissioned beyond repair. That was her last battle.
@sirboomsalot4902
8 ай бұрын
In the end it took Mother Nature herself to take Yukikaze down
@ryanfoster9863
8 ай бұрын
Are we sure she was really gone when they scraped her? I’ve heard the Taiwanese would reuse the turbines and reduction gears as the base for building fast ferries.
@sirboomsalot4902
8 ай бұрын
@@ryanfoster9863 Huh, we might have to track down those ferries. I also know they sent her rudder and an anchor back to Japan as a goodwill present
@TrickiVicBB71
8 ай бұрын
What an interesting career. At least parts of her survived
It’s worth noting that when the decision to put Yukikaze down for scrap, Jiang Jieshi died several hours later!
@WALTERBROADDUS
8 ай бұрын
Who is that?
@erichammer2751
8 ай бұрын
@@WALTERBROADDUS aka "Chiang Kai-Shek."
@WALTERBROADDUS
8 ай бұрын
@@erichammer2751 oh....😮 That is quirky....
@andrewzheng4038
8 ай бұрын
@@WALTERBROADDUSand in case you’re wondering why the massive difference, “Chiang Kai Shek” is how Chiang Kai-Shek, being a southerner himself, would’ve pronounced his name in the southern Chinese dialect. “Jiang Jieshi” is the same characters, but pronounced in the now-standard Mandarin (which is associated with the North, or more specifically Manchuria)
@ottaviobasques
8 ай бұрын
Given her history, who knows what would happen had she been seized by the US... Certainly she wouldn't go down without taking someone else with her.
Yukikaze is the Forrest Gump of the IJN: blithely strolling through all the greatest engagements in the war, always present but never the focus of events and _somehow_ making it through against all expectation or reasonable odds.
@bizjetfixr8352
8 ай бұрын
Maybe John Coffey was a Steward on board the Yukikaze.
Never take her and Shigure to a dinner party. They'll spend the entire time arguing who's the luckier ship
@rembrandt972ify
8 ай бұрын
And stick you with the tab.
@bkjeong4302
8 ай бұрын
I’d argue Yukikaze was luckier, given that a) she survived an actual suicide mission where she WASN’T supposed to survive, and b) she did more damage to the USN overall than Shigure.
@Eboreg2
8 ай бұрын
I prefer the Yukikaze who insists she's not a miracle ship and the Shigure with PTSD.
@istillusezune82
8 ай бұрын
Yuki was more lucky obviously. Warspite might beat her though.
@sirboomsalot4902
8 ай бұрын
@@Eboreg2The AL interpretation versus the KC interpretation lol
Yukikaze - a very fast, well-armed rescue ship. Perspective change: IJN sailor in dread when task force including Yukikaze sets off for decisive battle. Sailor in the water is overjoyed when Yukikaze shows up in rescue.
On 7th April 1945 when Yukikaze was in escorting the Yamato whose in its last mission and by the time it had several torpedo hits and beginning to list and slowing down, the Yukikaze still firmly ㏌ escorting formation, communicated to the Yamato with flag signal "Suffer no damage, operation normal"
@robertf3479
8 ай бұрын
Figuratively throwing the big battlewagon a "raspberry." 😁😁
@M167A1
8 ай бұрын
Yamoto's reply "FU"
@lightbluewaves5526
8 ай бұрын
Yamato's sarcastic reply: OH REALLY!!??
@suflanker45
8 ай бұрын
Yamato: A Hole!!
Oooh! This ship has lent its name to a variety of various bits of Japanese media, so I'm excited to learn what made a "mere" destroyer so well known.
@gokbay3057
8 ай бұрын
That's the invincible lucky ship for you. Well jokes aside, the name does mean snow wind, so it is quite possible that a lot of titles are using the literal meaning rather than referencing the destroyer.
@memeboy8207
8 ай бұрын
@@gokbay3057Well the sby yuki certainly is a descendent.
@ryanfoster9863
8 ай бұрын
It is fun to imagine a Japanese grandfather who served in the IJN Yukikaze watching Space Battleship Yamato with the grandkids in 1974 and seeing a heroic spaceship named Yukikaze whose captain helped save Earth.
@TrickiVicBB71
8 ай бұрын
She in the new Minus One trailer in Godzilla
@keysontrains538
8 ай бұрын
@@ryanfoster9863notably trading her luck with her Kongo class to make up for the failing of her ancestor escorting the original Kongo, how touching-
The underlying humor contained in this ship review makes it one of your best ever. 😂
@micnorton9487
8 ай бұрын
I think Drach genuinely enjoys the reviews where the guest ends up scrapped after a long and colorful career, rather than going down in flames.... His humor at a ship going down is usually more ironic than humorous,, and I appreciate that he never revels in the loss of sailors no matter what Navy they're from......
@BleedingUranium
8 ай бұрын
@@micnorton9487 Absolutely. Drach's balance of some degree of military gallows humour (it's essential for the topic, really) but also clear value of human life for the simple fact of it being a fellow person, is one of the reasons this is such an enjoyable channel.
@richardbennett1856
2 ай бұрын
BY FAR!!
There is an important naval strategy lesson here. “It is best to always be sailing next to a bigger, better target”. In Yukikaze’s defense, she probably manage to bring home almost 1/2 of the Japanese Navy’s total number of survivors from sunken ships. She had a reputation of being one of the few IJN destroyers that would do so. (Practice makes perfect). She is also the ship at the Battle of Samar whose crew stood at attention and respectfully saluted the sinking USS Johnston and her crew as they came past her. Most of all the Yukikaze is noted for bringing almost all of her crew home by wars end. I think she only lost 6 sailors over the entire course of the war. Which was remarkable for how many major battles she saw. She was one of the few IJN ships, and the only pre war destroyer to see the entire length of the war from Dec 7th through to August ‘45. “She who survives” did get more than a bit of a “Flying Dutchman” cursed ship rumor surrounding her. To see her sailing next to you was to know you were doomed.
@jgkitarel
8 ай бұрын
The fact that she SURVIVED all those battles and saw service long after the war she is most famous for says a lot about her. There are damn few Destroyers who managed that, most being scrapped shortly after the war due to post-war drawdowns.
@TheRealRedAce
6 ай бұрын
To be fair, the vast majority of the IJN was doomed - they were massively outnumbered in the end.
@metaknight115
2 ай бұрын
Yukikaze famously saluted USS Johnston, but a number of Japanese warships did the same. The heavy cruiser Haguro closed to point blank range and finished off the crippled destroyer Hoel, but afterwards sailed by the tin can and saluted her, and the destroyer Fujinami did the same to the sinking escort carrier Gambier Bay.
In Godzilla Minus One, a naval officer introduces himself as Yukikaze's captain and I immediately went: "If I trust one guy to beat Godzilla and survive, it's the captain of the one Japanese ship that survives everything despite everyone exploding around her." The lucky destroyer herself also shows up in the climax of the movie, though I won't spoil here how the fight goes for her. You'll have to watch the movie for that.
@carpecanem611
8 ай бұрын
Thank you. I'm REALLY surprised that Drach missed this.
@BleedingUranium
7 ай бұрын
Destroyers Hibiki, Yuukaze, and Keyaki show up as well, as does heavy cruiser Takao. :)
@BlueCollar80
Ай бұрын
@@BleedingUranium they did Takao dirty, poor girl
Probably the longest-in-service IJN vessel. Long-lasting even by other countries standards, TBH. She actually actively fought during the Taiwan Strait crisis, capturing a Chinese vessel. My personal favourite Yukikaze story is that after shooting up an already mortally wounded Johnston, she saluted the American ship for her courage. The fun part being that the ship that had already fatally wounded Johnston was Yamato, which would also sink with Yukikaze being present. Also, not only this thing but also two of her sister ships were present for the sinkings of all three Yamato-class vessels. Said sister ships didn’t survive Ten-Go (though given that all the ships sent out during Ten-Go weren’t supposed to survive, it’s stranger that Yukikqze did). In fact those three escorted almost every battleship and carrier in the IJN (the Nagumo Four, the Crane Sisters, all three Yamatos, both Hiyos, all four Kongos, Taiho, and Nagato-and that’s just off the top of my head). AND got to see over half of those ships sink. Edit: there is also the time she pulled off a successful torpedo attack on an American formation during Kolombaranga, by triangulating their position from their radar transmissions and using that to come up with a firing solution.
@user-zj5kd8hk7d
8 ай бұрын
最後まで存在したのはたぶん駆逐艦 響ですね。ロシアに渡り「ヴェールヌイ」"信頼できる"とその名を変えて70年代のいずれかにロシアで標的艦として終えた。
@mikeholton3914
8 ай бұрын
@@user-zj5kd8hk7d i had understood it was Yukikaze that had rendered Honors at this battle, regardless of which IJN Destroyer her, or Hibiki, it was a tremendously Honorable thing to do in the middle of a battle. i need to go back and do some digging on Hibiki. Thank You for the comment!
@metaknight115
8 ай бұрын
Yep. Yukikaze was awesome. Same she wasn’t preserved as a museum ship. Efforts were made, but obviously not successful.
@leandersearle5094
8 ай бұрын
*PLAN vessel Awful name, but both sides are/were Chinese, so the distinction matters here. Even if we have to say "Army-Navy" in the process. -_-
@micnorton9487
8 ай бұрын
I wouldn't make too much of Japanese sailors "chivalry" during WW ii,, I want to hope it wasn't this ship but 1 Japanese destroyer surviving the Battle of Midway took aboard a couple of American flyers, and after torturing them horribly to get all the information they had, basically kicked and punched them to death... Onboard another one they took aboard a couple more,, including the guy that was only a Gunner's mate and performed a heroic act onboard I think it was the yorktown, and when he and his pilot were picked up by the japanese, after horribly torturing for all the information they had of course, these guys were tortured all the way to the stern, where begging for mercy they were thrown overboard to the sharks... On History buffs, Nick Hodges on his video Midway makes no excuse for his opinion of the utter brutality and despicable sadism of Japanese naval personnel...
Ah Yukikaze, by far the most effective US Navy ship of the entire war, no other ship got as many confirmed assisted sinkings as her.
@dyingearth
8 ай бұрын
Kamchatka
@guaporeturns9472
8 ай бұрын
How does “being present” during sinkings make her “effective” in said sinkings? English is not your first language perhaps?
@bkjeong4302
8 ай бұрын
@@guaporeturns9472 Given that tons of people unironically think the Iowas got a lot of things done simply because they were present at engagements (without actually justifying their presence), they might actually think that a ship being somewhere equals it doing things.
@guaporeturns9472
8 ай бұрын
@@bkjeong4302 😂 Yes , tons of AMERICAN people.
@hawkeye5955
8 ай бұрын
@@dyingearth: The legacy of the Kamchatka was carried by Yukikaze, minus the fear of torpedo boats.
Yukikaze, cursed with the ultimate blessing *not dying*
@JeremyPrattigmp2u
8 ай бұрын
There can be only one! Highlander
@barelyasurvivor1257
8 ай бұрын
@@JeremyPrattigmp2u Ah yes, its time I pulled out my VHS tapes of the series and watched them again. TY for reminding me of the series, I loved it on Tv and on tape and of course the movies.
@tau-5794
8 ай бұрын
Got that Suzaku curse.
In the animated movie 'Final Yamato', the Space BattleshipYamato is assigned nine escort ships to accompany her on its mission. Only one ship survived to the end of the movie; even the Yamato was destroyed. Can you guess the name of the sole escorting ship to survive the movie? I'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count.
@samkornrumph8545
8 ай бұрын
I’ve never seen Final Yamato, but I have seen most of the original anime. That’s pretty cool that Earth named a second space destroyer after Yukikaze. The first of course being Kodai’s missile destroyer that was lost at the Battle of Pluto. That version of Yukikaze also survived many battles, though she was damaged and was already in rough shape before her last battle. She was also the last Earth warship destroyed in the war with Gamilas.
@SVSky
8 ай бұрын
@@samkornrumph8545 She covered Kirishima's retreat in 2199. Kirishima being the only ship to survive Operation M.
@able34bravo37
8 ай бұрын
I've never watched any of that. Are you serious that the only survivng ship was Yukikaze?
perfect timing for this video, since the Yukikaze plays an important role in "Godzilla: Minus One" which just came out
These stories of people or machines going through a war without so much as a scratch are always amazing. It's like the various Gods of War pick one out to always be in the thick of the fighting but never touched by it.
@rickgehring7507
8 ай бұрын
My grandfather use to say , "the Devil doesn't need him yet", He flew with the Tigers in Pre war China, was on Yorktown for Coral sea and Midway, was then assigned the Wasp, after the Wasp(CV7) was sunk he was transferred to USS Ranger because he was fluent in Italian, Germen and French. , idea was that if any prisoners were captured he would be able to help with interpretation ., When the BIG Benn(CV13) was commissioned he was part of the fighter group, served on the Big Benn till the end of October 44 , he was flying CAP when the Betty struck the Ben on 10/18/44, after he left Big Benn he went back to the Atlantic were he finished his Naval Flying career on the USS Mission Bay.
@barelyasurvivor1257
8 ай бұрын
@@rickgehring7507 Fascinating TY for sharing this info.
Definitely a bigger luck vampire than Prinz Eugen. She only took the luck from her sisters by 2 not being finished, 1 sinking basically immediately with only Admiral Hipper having some service live before being forced to leave the survivors of the Wilhelm Gustloff in the water after arriving mere minutes later (although that was because of a submarine warning for obvious reasons) and being wrecked by bombs during the end of the war. Yukikaze meanwhile after the disaster at Midway said to everyone in the Japanese fleet "We are losing anyway and I don't plan on going down. Have fun down there at the ocean floor.". Like, who would say "A Japanese destroyer" when they are asked the question "Which ship was present at the sinking of all 3 Yamato class vessels?"?
@bkjeong4302
8 ай бұрын
“All three Yamatos”? Try “over half the entire Japanese capital ship fleet” (Half the Kongos, Shokaku, Hiyo, and Taiho; you could also add Zuikaku, the Fusos, and the rest of the OG Kido Butai if you count Leyte Gulf as a whole and Midway, even though Yukikaze wasn’t near those particular vessels when they were sunk)
@tbjtbj7930
8 ай бұрын
Prinz had a much smaller navy to work with, but still managed to take the luck of her sisterships, Bismark, Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Leipzig - all the other heavy cruisers and 75% of the capital ships isn't bad. Transfer to the USN opened up whole new opportunities, but when she started her new career by ramming a tug they decided to drop a nuke on her just to be safe.
@myparceltape1169
8 ай бұрын
And it missed.
@Hendricus56
8 ай бұрын
@@tbjtbj7930 Wouldn't really say she took Bismarck's luck. While Bismarck was with Prinz Eugen she destroyed Hood and damaged PoW enough that she retreated. Meanwhile what can be attributed to bad luck for Bismarck? The torpedo to the rudder. Apart from that the sinking was inevitable. 1 battleship against the entire Royal Navy in the Northern Atlantic only had 1 available outcome
@istillusezune82
8 ай бұрын
Her last "victim" was the ROCN patrol boat 沱江 (PC-104), which was written off after taking a direct hit from PLAN torpedo. In return 8 of those P-6 torpedo boats were sunk, with all their torpedo missing Yukikaze. That was 1958, over a decade after WWII.
I can only imagine the scrapping of this ship going about as well as the climactic scene from “Raiders of the Lost Ark” 😂👻👻👻
I cannot help but imagine destroyers as the little dogs of the fleet. While battleships are gentle giants that amaze people merely by their existence and often play key roles in one or two major battles that the world will remember forever, destroyers appear youthful and active, much like children who turn everything into a game. Every time Drach uploads a 5-minute guide for a destroyer, for me it sounds like the life of a dog that is fighting, bumping into things, charging somewhere without a back thought, chasing it’s glory under the shadows of capital ships, and being bitten throughout it’s short life
@bkjeong4302
8 ай бұрын
Battleships (or really, the WWII-era fast battleships specifically) are more like the Vengeance weapons IMO; technological marvels with lots of destructive power but with limited ability to actually make use of their power and technology and failing to live up to the hype. The average (yes, the average) WWII-era destroyer was a more cost-effective and strategically valuable weapons than basically all 29 WWII-generation battleships combined. Very few of them (IMO, as few as two) actually played critical roles that only newly-built battleships could handle and even those vessels had only one-off successes in that regard.
@boobah5643
8 ай бұрын
@@bkjeong4302 _Tirpitz_ is an exception to your rule, I think. Or maybe not; for all the trouble she caused the Royal Navy by simply existing, it's arguable that more damage would have been done spending the same resources on smaller vessels.
@karl3998
8 ай бұрын
That would depend massively what smaller vessels were build instead: light cruisers? less effective (given the um... great designs). Destroyers? same. U-Boats? very interesting - depending on what class that could have dramatically changed the battle of the Atlantic. Imagine 50 more type VII boats available in summer 1940...
The “luck vampire” phrase is really descriptive for Yukikaze‘s story.
Yukikaze might be responsible for the outcome of World War 2, the Korean War and our present geopolitical situation.
@istillusezune82
8 ай бұрын
She won a naval battle in 1958, thus allowing Taiwan to hold several outlying islands until today. China still hasn't taken them.
@jameschenard1386
8 ай бұрын
Yukikaze-Japan’s equivalent of Forrest Gump?
If she was a single player game, her player clearly reloaded every time she got sunk.
@vikkimcdonough6153
8 ай бұрын
"Hold F9 to load quicksave..."
@Noble713
8 ай бұрын
Heh, Yukikaze's captain was a save-scummer!
The ship that wouldn't die. I wonder if her crew noticed her luck. And winder if the crews of the other ships noticed as well. Reminds of New Zealand.
@S0RGEx
8 ай бұрын
Allegedly at one point she was known as the God of Death or the Plague God.
We are lucky that humans in general and sailors in particular are remarkably good at stringing statistical outliers into a compelling and entertaining narrative - or superstition, how ever you may look at it. That in turn means we get more entertaining content in stellar presentation by Drach
Yamato: "Whats going on... *terrified* why is everyone dying?" *sounds of a ship sneaking up behind* Yukikaze: *whispers into ear* just Yukikaze. *evil smirk*
@bkjeong4302
8 ай бұрын
Considering that Yamato had been present at Philippine Sea and at Leyte Gulf (and did more than once assumed during the latter), AND also was present when Kongo and Urakaze were sunk during Centre Force’s return trips to Japan, AND had both of her sister ships sunk while Yukikaze was present, she’d probably know already. Especially since Ten-Go was a suicide mission and she was never supposed to survive it anyways.
@hawkeye5955
8 ай бұрын
Just Monika.
This is very timely, thank you. I was about to buy the a of this ship and make her up to go alongside my collection - but as I don't want harm to come to my collection, I will choose a more benign ship to model.
*HAHAHA! YUKIKAZE THE GREAT WILL NOT SINK NANODA!*
@chiefwuggets
8 ай бұрын
I felt this... nanoda.
@SonOfAB_tch2ndClass
8 ай бұрын
@@chiefwuggets *WAHAHA! YUKIKAZE THE GREAT WILL PROTECT THE FLEET NANODA!*
@chiefwuggets
8 ай бұрын
i mean... she's never left my pvp fleet in AL@@SonOfAB_tch2ndClass
@Arphalia
8 ай бұрын
I came to the comments looking for another cultured member of society. I have not been disappointed. o7
@hardcore476
8 ай бұрын
I love to play har in legends
As I remember the book Japanese Destroyer Captain is the autobiography of her captain. And during the Guadalcanal campaign she took a torpedo through her rudder that didn’t explode. An interesting book
@S0RGEx
8 ай бұрын
That was Shigure. IIRC, Hara did mention Yukikaze a couple times, but not in any detail as he hoped her captain would publish his memoirs as well. Shame it doesn't seem like he ever did.
@dziwnalata9271
8 ай бұрын
Tameichi Hara who wrote "Japanese Destroyer Captain" was a captain of Amatsukaze and then Shigure. An episode with a torpedo hitting the rudder was on Shigure during the Battle of Vella Gulf on 6-7 August 1943.
@erichammer2751
8 ай бұрын
@@dziwnalata9271 The torpedo "hitting the rudder" (I've seen "going underneath") leads to a point I find interesting. Russell Crenshaw, the exec of Maury, says that he set the ship's torpedoes to five feet depth because he, along with several others by that time, suspected that the torpedoes were running deep. But standing orders were to set them at ten feet, and he says he disobeyed the order and went with his gut. He also says Maury got at least four hits, and we know three of the Japanese DDs went down. So, the question: did other ships set their torpedoes for ten feet, and was it one of those that narrowly missed Shigure?
@marckyle5895
8 ай бұрын
It was noteworthy that Admiral Lockwood's scheme to sink Japanese ships by punching torpedo sized holes in their hull was deemed a failure by historians.
Finally got to Yukikaze! One of my favorite DDs of the IJN!
Yukikaze also makes an appearance in the new "Godzilla Minus One" film, set in 1947. Haven't seen it yet so I don't know if the "luck vampire" status saves her in that.
@sirboomsalot4902
8 ай бұрын
Hibiki, Yukaze, and Takao too. We know from the trailers Takao gets atomic breathed
@Quasarnova1
8 ай бұрын
@@sirboomsalot4902 Keyaki as well.
@sirboomsalot4902
8 ай бұрын
@@Quasarnova1 Ah, I was wondering which one the Matsu-class was. Thanks
@fabianzimmermann5495
8 ай бұрын
Yep, she's in the movie and the moment I saw her I just went: "Oh, she'll be fine, Godzilla isn't the worst thing she came up against." I won't spoil here if she survives the movie or not, you'll have to watch it to figure that out. (Highly recommend it.)
@BleedingUranium
8 ай бұрын
Absolutely incredible film, high cannot recommend it enough. The setting, the characters, the themes/tone, the music, it's all stellar. There are some other cool period Japanese vehicles too, such a some Chi-To tanks, a Zero, and another aircraft (one of my all-time favourites) which I won't spoil.
“I know he's a good general, but is he lucky?” ― Napoleon Bonaparte
Also participated Operation KE, removal Japanese army forces on Guadalcanal with 3 runs. Also at Philippine Sea, Yukikaze escorted 2nd Supply Squadron as it was closest to Americans, not the carriers. As was the case with some IJN units, it had a damage propeller shaft, and couldn't be spared to go back to Japan to get fixed. With Isokaze, only destroyer to return to Brunei in Leyte Gulf campaign. While DesDiv 17, the destroyer division Yukikaze was assigned to, it was highest ranked division in the IJN, escorting the battleship or carriers
She's a wonderful ship. My 2nd choice IJN destroyer after Ayanami.
@gwydionrusso3206
8 ай бұрын
I assume you play azur lane
This might be the ship to serve on, if you are a Japanese sailor
Perhaps Yukikaze just had plot armor in a losing war.
I just so love the description 'Luck Vampire', a stroke of genius fitting for such a legendary ship.
She also helped save japan from Godzilla
@OCGangsta
7 ай бұрын
Yus
I know a Taiwanese brough his Yukikaze scale model to enter a exibition/competition in Japan. Because scale model is very delicate, he had to hand carry it all the way. The Japanese custom officer at the airport recognize it is Yukikaze and thank him bringing Yukikaze to its home.
Great dinner and Drach, and a IJN ship. Very appropriate after moving to Japan 😊
@mikeholton3914
8 ай бұрын
breakfast here in the US (Virginia) nothing like a Saturday morning coffee and a new ship to see.
@sse_weston4138
8 ай бұрын
@@mikeholton3914 Curse my sleep schedule, I could've joined you brother D:
@mikeholton3914
8 ай бұрын
@@sse_weston4138 you'd be welcome!
William D. Porter has nothing to brag about. It would have been interesting to see Yukikaze used in the Operation Crossroads Test, it would probably still be bobbing in the middle of the lagoon.
@RM-we7px
8 ай бұрын
What bomb?
@bkjeong4302
8 ай бұрын
@@cancermcaids7688 Alternatively, she ends up so radioactive she becomes the first and only nuclear-powered destroyer and starts to sail by herself.
@frednone
8 ай бұрын
@@RM-we7px Both, in fact the second one would have been moored under her instead of the landing craft, after the first one hit her instead after missing Nevada.
@frednone
8 ай бұрын
@@bkjeong4302 You've been playing too much Azur Lane.
@metaknight115
Ай бұрын
Most of William D Porter's unlucky stories are just internet myth. She doesn't hold a candle against Yukikaze, especially sink Yukikaze sank or helped to sink several allied warships while Willie D never engaged an enemy vessels.
In the latest movie Godzilla-1.0, Yukikaze, along with the destroyer Hibiki, successfully completed an important mission to wrap wires around Godzilla in the ocean.
@AtomicBabel
7 ай бұрын
Good call! Well placed into the movie's theme of survivor guilt, redemption and living for the future
What a funny angle to take with this story. Very funny stuff. I've always read this ships history as a hero ship, but this cursed ship narrative is hilarious.
Yukikaze is like Noah's arc: collecting several survivors from each ship of the ijn
And for these interested in such things, this is why Chōhei Kambayashi named his scifi novel series after her. Granted, its about aircraft, rather than ships, but the analogy is obvious. First two books even got a pretty decent anime adaptation.
@matthewlok3020
8 ай бұрын
That anime is a classic for aircraft related genre
歴代艦長が豪傑、優秀すぎますね雪風は 感動ものです そのお陰でしょう
@jonathanlong6987
8 ай бұрын
さようでござる。
So fitting to get this today, 26°F light breeze and snowing here in Albuquerque New Mexico U.S.A. right now.
@tomhenry897
8 ай бұрын
Cold light snow Iowa
I can see this being a lecture or a TED Talk: "Luck or Curse? IJN Yukikaze: A Story About Perspective"
Yukikaze was collecting sailors from other ships like ingame achievments. Dedicated 100% run there!
She sailed in interesting times.
Yukikaze was a guard ship. Always plucking survivors out of the ocean.
Everybody needs to go see Godzilla Minus One to find out if Yukikaze can also survive giant radioactive dinosaur attacks.
@bkjeong4302
8 ай бұрын
Spoiler alert: she can and does.
@FltCaptAlan
8 ай бұрын
@@bkjeong4302 not only that, but Hibiki survives being in the same fleet as Yukikaze
@bkjeong4302
8 ай бұрын
@@FltCaptAlan Lmao
_Local ship literally too lucky to sink_
Yes. Good start to a Saturday. Watch Drach, then feed and walk dog. Bliss.
It did survive the latest Godzilla attack.
"Heeeeeeeey, I'm starting to see a pattern here" - Aruga Kosaku, captain of the Yamato for Operation Ten-Go.
I've been building a model of the Yukikaze in 1:700 scale and been wishing that drac would do a video on it this is such a good day lol
Awesome description, thank you! In the RAN we used to refer to “Davey Jones’ locker” simply as the “fish locker”. Maybe that’s just a habit of us shortening things, I don’t know. Thanks again Drach!
Indeed, Yukikaze was a lucky ship, but she has more than only luck. Before Japan fully enter the war, their navy had some competition among their ship crews. Yukikaze's crew was a reward winning team. Yukikaze lost only handful of her crew during the entire war, so her crew's teamwork didn't suffer. Yukikaze had five commanders in her entire career in IJN, and all of them were experienced commanders. Finally, because of her expernced commanders and well cooperated crew, Yukikaze was one of the first IJN destroyers to install advanced radar that increase her chance of survival even more.
Decided to get back into building models a couple of weeks ago and the first one I bought was Yukikaze, and now this video comes out.
Did you smell that I just bought a Yukikaze kit in 1:350 from Hasegawa? :D
Actually the ship itself was lucky to survive the war. It was all the other ships that were unlucky.
@MrGoesBoom
8 ай бұрын
hence the term 'luck vampire'
@micnorton9487
8 ай бұрын
@@MrGoesBoom.. luck vampire,, the Japanese have weird ways of putting things...
Major Japanese naval operation Destroyer Yukikaze is involved Decisive American Victory
@champagnegascogne9755
8 ай бұрын
Truly the nanoda moment of all time
USS O'Bannon "Lucky O":Ah,a worthy opponent.(They did cross path during Guadalcanal) The fact that a early war Flatcher class that charged down a battleship US DD style,went through the most furious sea battles of all time,"SINK A SUB WITH POTATO",and NEVER LOSE A shipmate......has a Irish name,never seized to amuse me.
Very amusing for everyone except her escorts. A Femme Fatale sur Mer. I thought her an impressive vessel since I first saw her photo in the MacMillan Series of Japanese Warships which I purchased in the mid 1960’s and still possess. I also like your frontispiece likeness to Players Cigarettes!. Non fumee. 👍🏻🏴
it may amuse you that there is a yukikaze in the movie godzilla minus one
@bkjeong4302
7 ай бұрын
It’s the same one.
In an almost totally unknown and top secret plan of US Naval intelligence, Japanese American sailors were slowly inserted in Japan by way of commercial ships and then concentrated on Yukikaze through a nefarious connection with a Japanese Captain (later Admiral) who had an addiction to coca cola, dice games and blonde movie stars after a stint as a naval attache. Arrangements were made to ensure both he and Yukikaze survived the war, with the Admiral being moved to the US under Operation Origami where his descendants today established and operate the Kroger sushi chain.... of at least this is what I was told during a warn saki drinking bout.
Oh hai lucky beaver! Unmentioned was that, as Dan Yang, she served as Taiwan's flagship until she was scrapped. She was unlucky for mainland China... but not for Taiwan.
The new song is growing on me! Good work as usual.
Drachinifel still hoping you’ll review HMS Grasshopper and the exploits of her crew escaping from Singapore
Anyone else notice Yukikaze was the destroyer the heroes were on at the end of Godzilla Minus One?
Yukikaze is a very beautiful name. And I feel that her story is both sad and beautiful.
Love the humorous spin. Whole story was well told, and funny as hell.
Super video. Appreciate your humorous slant on the ships history. One of your best.
She brought survivors home, and news of how events unfolded. She did her duty. Survivors guilt be dammed and her "curse" a heavy burden she carried as best she could.
IJN Yukikaze: Fight Me! USS Johnston: I literally have bigger fish to fry. Get out of my way. Yamato is running away from me and our fight isnt over.
@bkjeong4302
8 ай бұрын
Sigh….more Johnston memes to distort her actual actions during Samar (which was to buy time for the CVEs and mostly damage the Japanese cruisers, get mortally wounded by Yamato, and then drive off a Japanese destroyer squadron making a run for the CVEs before getting badly mauled some more and sinking; she did NOT terrify Centre Force into running away on her own like increasingly many people seriously will argue she did)
@gobstomperbow3517
8 ай бұрын
@@bkjeong4302 you think people take the meme seriously? Hahaha your to naive for the internet if that's the case
@sirboomsalot4902
8 ай бұрын
@@gobstomperbow3517People absolutely take memes at face value and base their historical knowledge off of them
@bkjeong4302
8 ай бұрын
@@gobstomperbow3517 I have personally seen people take this particular meme seriously.
My dad was on the USS BALCH 363 ,Porter Class Destoyer. They called it The Big E's good luck ship.
Love it, one of the most entertaining ship guides yet. The humor is exceptionally British even by Drach standards :)
Another interesting tidbit of naval history I did not know! With the usual excellent presentation.
Her career was truly incredible. Thanks for this. ☮
That was great. I knew about "Lucky" Shigure, but not the Yukikaze. Great tongue in cheek documentary.
This is probably the Drachism heaviest video on this channel and I love it.
A suggestion for a ship to review: Goetzen/ Liemba. A German WW1 ship, which was transporter to Africa and is still running on lake tanganyika until today.
Soon as I saw the subject, I knew this was going to be a snarky Drach special. Did not disappoint. 😂
This is the most solid example of a cursed ship that I have ever heard.
Drach's humor on these videos is priceless !!!
Fascinating content. Entertaining and educational, as expected, from Professor Doctor Drach.
Yukikaze: I’ve become a Shinigami (God of Death). Space Battleship Yamato: which type of Shinigami? The big, ugly apple eating type or the cute and puffy anime girl one?
There's a Japanese folk tale about . [Woman in the Snow] who lures young men to their death by hypothermia especially in snowy mountain passes. Featured in the 1964 film, ''Kwaidan.'' I wonder if the Yukikaze wasn't known around the IJN fleet as a Jonah ship, and called a snow witch?
@reynard61
8 ай бұрын
Well, the name does loosely translate to "Blizzard"... 😏
“Luckiest” meant she, if ships truly do have a soul, had to watch all her friends die around her.
@therealuncleowen2588
8 ай бұрын
After a while she stopped even bothering to learn their names because it hurt too much when they sank.
@lame2cool
8 ай бұрын
Shigure: "First time?" Mogami: "At least its not as embarassing for you lot..."
"OH FUCK! It's the Yukikaze!" ~anonymous and soon deleted Japanese captain😂😂
It's amusing in a grim way how some ships survive and others don't. Yukikaze somehow made it through many major and minor engagements and took no damage, while others were sunk alongside her. I guess sometimes it's good to be a DD, and therefore lower down the target list compared to other ships nearby. The battle record also nicely explains "Yukikaze the Great" from Azur Lane. She blusters and poses a lot, putting up a proud front. But if spurned or left behind she then hastily changes her mind and frantically beseeches the Commander to let her join him.
Just watched the Historigraph vid where yukikaze failed to defend shanano too lol
Godzilla himself could not destroy her.