View source for Japanese cruiser Chishima

{{Unreferenced|date=November 2009}}
{|{{Infobox Ship Begin}}
{{Infobox Ship Image
|Ship image=[[Image:Chishima.jpg|300px|Chishima]]
|Ship caption=''Chishima'' in 1890
}}
{{Infobox Ship Career
|Hide header=
|Ship country= 
|Ship flag=[[Image:Naval Ensign of Japan.svg|50px|Japanese Navy Ensign]]
|Ship name=''Chishima''
|Ship namesake=
|Ship ordered= 1887 Fiscal Year
|Ship builder= [[Chantiers de la Loire]], [[France]]
|Ship laid down= 29 January 1890
|Ship launched= 26 November 1890
|Ship completed= 1 April 1892
|Ship acquired=
|Ship commissioned= 24 November 1892
|Ship decommissioned= 
|Ship in service=
|Ship out of service=
|Ship struck=  
|Ship homeport=
|Ship honours=
|Ship fate= Lost to collision, 30 November 1892
|Ship status=
|Ship notes=
}}
{{Infobox Ship Characteristics
|Hide header=
|Header caption=
|Ship type= [[Protected cruiser]]
|Ship displacement={{convert|741|LT|t|0|lk=in|abbr=on}}
|Ship length={{convert|71|m|ftin|abbr=on}} [[Length at the waterline|w/l]]
|Ship beam={{convert|7.7|m|ftin|abbr=on}}
|Ship draught={{convert|2.97|m|ftin|abbr=on}}
|Ship propulsion=Triple expansion engine, 2 screws; {{convert|5000|hp|abbr=on}}
|Ship speed={{convert|22|kn|mph km/h}} nominal<br />{{convert|19|kn|mph km/h}} actual
|Ship range= 
|Ship complement=90
|Ship armament=• 5 × {{convert|76|mm|in|0|abbr=on}} guns<br />• 6 × {{convert|37|mm|in|abbr=on}} 1-pounder guns<br />• 3 × {{convert|380|mm|in|abbr=on}} [[torpedo tube]]s
|Ship armour=
|Ship notes=
}}
|}
The {{nihongo|'''IJN ''Chishima'''''|千島 通報艦|Chishima tsūhōkan}} was a 3rd class [[protected cruiser]] of the [[Imperial Japanese Navy]]. The name ''Chishima'' (lit. "Thousand Islands") is the [[Japanese language|Japanese]] name for the [[Kurile Islands]].

==Background==
The ''Chishima'' was designed by [[o-yatoi gaikokujin|French military advisor]] [[Emile Bertin]], and built in the [[Chantiers de la Loire]] shipyards in [[France]]. It was part of the 1882 pre-[[First Sino-Japanese War]] expansion program of the Imperial Japanese Navy. In keeping with the [[Jeune Ecole]] philosophy of naval warfare advocated by Bertin, the ''Chishima'' was small and lightly armed, so much so that sometimes the ''Chishima'' has been referred to as a [[torpedo gunboat]] or [[destroyer]]. The IJN itself rated the ''Chishima'' as a ''tsūhōkan'', meaning dispatch boat or [[aviso]].

The commissioning of the ''Chishima'' was delayed by over a year, as the ship could achieve only {{convert|19|kn|km/h}}, instead of the promised {{convert|22|kn|km/h|0}}; the French government agreed to pay the Japanese government some financial compensation for the issue.

==Service record==
The shakedown cruise of the ''Chishima'' was made on its voyage to Japan, with a crew of 79 French and eleven Japanese sailors, via [[Alexandria]], the [[Suez Canal]] and [[Singapore]]. The ship suffered from numerous problems on this voyage, including boiler failure, leaks, and ruptured steam lines, before finally arriving at [[Nagasaki, Nagasaki|Nagasaki]]. 

However, the ''Chishima'' was lost only one week after its formal commissioning into the Japanese navy, in a night collision on 30 November 1892 with the [[Great Britain|British]] [[Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company|P&O]] [[merchant vessel]] ''Ravenna'', off [[Matsuyama, Ehime|Matsuyama]], [[Ehime prefecture]], in poor weather. Her captain and all 90 sailors onboard drowned. This incident led to the establishment of the Japanese "Maritime Anti-Collision Regulations".

One of the cannons of the ''Chishima'' is preserved in a memorial at the [[Aoyama|Aoyama Cemetery]] in [[Tokyo]], and a memorial to the Chishima disaster with [[calligraphy]] by [[Togo Heihachiro]] is at the [[Buddhism|Buddhist temple]] of Jofuku-ji in Matsuyama.

==Litigation following sinking==
Afterwards, in a [[Admiralty law|maritime]] [[tribunal]] held by the British [[consular court]] in [[Yokohama]], P&O was cleared.   The Japanese Government then brought action against P&O in the British Court for Japan.  P&O sought to file a counterclaim which the judge in the Court for Japan, Robert Mowat, rejected as not being within the jurisdiction of the court.   P&O appealed to the [[British Supreme Court for China and Japan]] ([[Nicholas John Hannen|Hannen]] and Jamieson JJ) which allowed the counterclaim.   The Japanese Government then appealed to the [[Judicial Committee of the Privy Council]] who allowed the appeal and held P&O was not allowed to counterclaim<ref>http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/uk/cases/UKPC/1895/1895_33.html The Imperial Japanese Government v The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (China and Japan) [1895] UKPC 33</ref>.   

The case was remitted to the Court for Japan for trial.   P&O then settled the case by paying the Japanese government 10,000 [[pounds sterling]] in compensation, which corresponded roughly to the purchase cost of the ship, but provided for no compensation to the families of the lost officers and crew. The Japanese government had to bear its own legal costs.  The British captain was not fined nor imprisoned for his responsibility in the incident. The settlement was regarded as highly unfair by the Japanese public, and was one issue cited in the drive for revision of the [[unequal treaties]] between Japan and the western nations to bring and to [[extraterritoriality]].

==References==
* Evans, David. ''Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887-1941''. US Naval Institute Press (1979). ISBN 0870211927
* Howarth, Stephen.  ''The Fighting Ships of the Rising Sun: The Drama of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1895-1945''. Atheneum; (1983) ISBN 0689114028
* Jane, Fred T. ''The Imperial Japanese Navy''. Thacker, Spink & Co (1904) ASIN: B00085LCZ4
* Jentsura, Hansgeorg. ''Warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1869-1945''. Naval Institute Press (1976). ISBN 087021893X
* Schencking, J. Charles. ''Making Waves: Politics, Propaganda, And The Emergence Of The Imperial Japanese Navy, 1868-1922''.  Stanford University Press (2005). ISBN 0804749779
* [http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/uk/cases/UKPC/1895/1895_33.html The Imperial Japanese Government v The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company  1895 UKPC 33]

{{Reflist}}

{{coord missing|Pacific Ocean}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chishima}}
[[Category:Cruisers of the Imperial Japanese Navy]]
[[Category:Cruisers of France]]
[[Category:Ships built in France]]
[[Category:1890 ships]]
[[Category:Unique cruisers]]
[[Category:Maritime incidents in 1892]]
[[Category:Shipwrecks in the Inland Sea]]

[[ja:千島 (通報艦)]]