Yakumo (八雲, Eight Clouds) was an armored cruiser (Sōkō jun'yōkan) built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) in the late 1890s.

The 1896 Naval Expansion Plan was made after the First Sino-Japanese War, and included four armored cruisers in addition to four more battleships, all of which had to be ordered from overseas shipyards as Japan lacked the capability to build them itself.

Unlike most of their contemporaries which were designed for commerce raiding or to defend colonies and trade routes, Yakumo and her half-sisters were intended as fleet scouts and to be employed in the battleline.

[6] The main armament for all of the "Six-Six Fleet" armored cruisers was four Armstrong Whitworth-built 45-caliber eight-inch guns in twin-gun turrets fore and aft of the superstructure.

Tōgō chose to attack the Russian coastal defenses with his main armament and engage the ships with his secondary guns.

[18] Although many ships on both sides were hit, Russian casualties numbered some 150, while the Japanese suffered roughly 90 killed and wounded before Tōgō disengaged.

[20] In early March, Vice Admiral Kamimura Hikonojō was tasked to take the reinforced 2nd Division north and make a diversion off Vladivostok.

While scouting for Russian ships in the area, the Japanese cruisers bombarded the harbor and defenses of Vladivostok on 6 March to little effect.

[22] On the morning of 10 August 1904, Dewa's cruisers were over 15 nautical miles (28 km; 17 mi) south of Tōgō's 1st Division when the Russians sortied from Port Arthur in another attempt to reach Vladivostok.

On 14 August, Yakumo and the 3rd Division was ordered to Qingdao to confirm that the Germans had indeed interned the battleship Tsesarevich and three destroyers that had taken shelter there after the battle.

[24] In mid-September, Yakumo was transferred back to Kamimura's 2nd Division, which was defending the Strait of Tsushima, although she began a refit at the end of the month.

[25] As the Russian 2nd and 3rd Pacific Squadrons approached Japan on 27 May, having sailed from the Baltic Sea, Yakumo was assigned to Kamimura's 2nd Division of the 2nd Fleet.

The Russians were spotted by patrolling Japanese ships early that morning, but visibility was limited and radio reception poor.

[26] Yakumo was fourth of six when Tōgō opened fire on the 2nd Pacific Squadron at 14:10 and, like most of the ships in the division, engaged the battleship Oslyabya which was forced to fall out of formation at 14:50 and sank 20 minutes later.

By this time the Russian formation was in disorder and the battleship Knyaz Suvorov suddenly appeared out of the mist at 15:35 at a range of about 2,000 meters (6,600 ft).

Admiral Ushakov was then spotted at 14:10, well after Nebogatov's surrender, by Shimamura who received permission to pursue her with his flagship, the armored cruiser Iwate, and Yakumo.

After about half an hour, Admiral Ushakov was listing heavily enough that her guns could not elevate enough to bear, and her commander ordered his crew to abandon ship and the scuttling charges detonated.

[31] On 14 June, Yakumo was assigned as the flagship of Vice Admiral Kataoka Shichirō, commander of the 3rd Fleet, as part of the operation to capture the island of Sakhalin in July.

[32] In November 1914, Yakumo was deployed to Singapore preparatory to searching for the German commerce raider Emden, but the ship was sunk before the mission began.

[34] In February 1917, the ship began patrolling the South Pacific and Indian Oceans, searching for German commerce raiders.

[35] She began the first of her many training cruises on 5 April when she departed for North America and Hawaii, before arriving back in Japan on 17 August.

[42] During a visit to Qingdao in 1932, Yakumo and Izumo had to land marines on 13 January to quell a riot by Japanese residents there.

However, Yakumo remained within the confines of the Seto Inland Sea throughout the war as she was assigned to training duties, and was not used in any combat operations.

On 24 July US Task Force 38 launched a massive attack on Kure to destroy any and all remaining units of the Japanese Navy.

Her mission was to return troops and civilians to the home islands from Japan's former overseas possessions, primarily from Taiwan and mainland China.

Yakumo arrived at the Maizuru shipyard of Hitachi Shipbuilding & Engineering on 20 July 1946 to begin demolition that lasted until 1 April 1947.