She participated in the Battle off Cape Engaño in late 1944, where she helped to decoy the American carrier fleet supporting the invasion of Leyte away from the landing beaches.

[5] Each of the boilers consumed a mixture of coal and oil, and the ships carried enough of both to give them a range of 9,680 nautical miles (17,930 km; 11,140 mi) at a speed of 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph).

[1] The fuel storage of the ships was increased which gave them a range of 7,870 nautical miles (14,580 km; 9,060 mi) at 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph), despite the additional weight.

[2] The twelve 35.6-centimetre (14 in) Type 41 guns of the Ise class were mounted in three pairs of twin-gun, superfiring turrets that were numbered one through six from front to rear.

[12] During the mid-1930s reconstruction, the torpedo tubes were removed, and the Vickers two-pounders were replaced by twenty license-built Hotchkiss 2.5-centimetre (1 in) Type 96 light AA guns in 10 twin-gun mounts.

[12] This was the standard Japanese light AA gun during World War II, but it suffered from severe design shortcomings that rendered it a largely ineffective weapon.

[17] Captain Shigeushi Nakagawa assumed command on 30 April[12] and the ship was completed on that same day, too late for service in World War I.

Beginning on 27 March 1932, she patrolled off the coast of China after the First Shanghai Incident, together with her sister ship Ise and the battlecruisers Kongo and Kirishima.

[18] Beginning on 24 October 1934, Hyūga was drydocked at Kure Naval Arsenal and underwent an extensive reconstruction and modernisation that lasted until 7 September 1936.

During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the ship ferried two battalions of the 3rd Sasebo Special Naval Landing Force to Port Arthur, China, on 19 August 1937.

On 30 June 1940 Hyūga served as the flagship for the Emperor of Manchukuo, Henry Pu Yi, during his state visit to Japan.

[12] When full-scale war started for Japan on 8 December,[Note 4] the division, reinforced by the battleships Nagato and Mutsu and the light carrier Hōshō, sortied from Hashirajima to the Bonin Islands as distant support for the 1st Air Fleet attacking Pearl Harbor, and returned six days later.

Together with the rest of the 2nd Battleship Division, Hyūga pursued but did not catch the American carrier force that had launched the Doolittle Raid on 18 April.

[12] Hyūga and the rest of the 2nd Battleship Division set sail on 28 May with the Aleutian Support Group at the same time most of the Imperial Fleet began an attack on Midway Island (Operation MI).

[19][20] Commanded by Vice-Admiral Shirō Takasu, the division was composed of Japan's four oldest battleships, including Hyūga, accompanied by two light cruisers, 12 destroyers, and two oilers.

[21] The loss of four Japanese aircraft carriers during the Battle of Midway in June severely limited the ability of the IJN to conduct operations and alternatives were sought.

Plans for full conversions of battleships into aircraft carriers were rejected on the grounds of expense and, most critically, time, so the IJN settled on removing the rear pair of turrets from the Ise-class ships and replacing them with a flight deck equipped with two rotating catapults.

[25] These changes increased the ship's overall length to 219.62 metres (720 ft 6 in) and the removal of the heavy gun turrets and their barbettes reduced her displacement to 39,805 long tons (40,444 t) at deep load, despite the addition of more fuel oil storage.

[26] Two days later, Hyūga became the flagship of the Fourth Carrier Division, now commanded by the recently promoted Rear Admiral Matsuda.

[27] After the Americans began attacking Japanese installations in the Bonin Islands on 10 October 1944, the aircraft of the Fourth Carrier Division were ordered to prepare for combat by the commander of the Combined Fleet, Admiral Soemu Toyoda.

[12] The ships of the Fourth Carrier Division were assigned to the Main Body of the 1st Mobile Fleet, commanded by Vice Admiral Jisaburō Ozawa.

They finally found them, but Admiral William Halsey, Jr., commander of Task Force 38, decided that it was too late in the day to mount an effective strike.

Matsuda ordered the battleship and the light cruiser Isuzu to tow the crippled carrier, but Hyūga was unable to do so and rejoined the main body at 18:30.

The American submarine USS Halibut spotted the Fourth Carrier Division at 17:42 and manoeuvered to attack, missing with six torpedoes at 18:43.

At 19:00 Ozawa ordered Matsuda to take his ships south to defend Isuzu and her escorting destroyers that were attempting to rescue Chiyoda's survivors, despite gunfire from a group of four American cruisers.

They arrived two days later and remained there until 12 December when they departed for Cam Ranh Bay, French Indochina, where they were on standby for an attack on an American supply convoy bound for the island of Mindanao in the Philippines.

Later that afternoon, Ōyodo launched one of her floatplanes which spotted the submarine USS Bashaw on the surface about 22 kilometres (14 mi) ahead of the convoy.

Hyūga opened fire with her main guns and forced Bashaw to submerge when one of her shells landed within 1,600 metres (1 mi) of the submarine.

More than 240 American carrier-based aircraft from Task Force 58 attacked Kure on 19 March and the ship was hit by three bombs, killing 37 and wounding 52 crewmen.

Progressive flooding caused the ship to sink in shallow water over the next several days and her crew was ordered to remove all easily accessible weapons.