oil to the fleet oil tanker Kenyo Maru, allowing the tanker to refuel other ships involved in Guadalcanal operations. On 7 January 1943, Mutsu departed from Truk for Japan via Saipan, accompanied by the carrier , the heavy cruiser and four destroyers. Mutsu left Hashirajima for Kure on 13 April, where she prepared to sortie to reinforce the Japanese garrisons in the Aleutian Islands in response to the Battle of the Komandorski Islands. The operation was cancelled the next day and the ship resumed training. Loss On 8 June 1943, Mutsu was moored in the Hashirajima fleet anchorage, with 113 flying cadets and 40 instructors from the Tsuchiura Naval Air Group aboard for familiarisation. At 12:13 the magazine of her No. 3 turret exploded, destroying the adjacent structure of the ship and cutting her in two. A massive influx of water into the machinery spaces caused the forward section of the ship to capsize to starboard and sink almost immediately. The stern section upended and remained floating until about 02:00 hours on 9 June before sinking, coming to rest a few hundred feet south of the main wreck at coordinates . The nearby Fusō immediately launched two boats which, together with the destroyers and and the cruisers and , rescued 353 survivors from the 1,474 crew members and visitors aboard Mutsu; 1,121 men were killed in the explosion. Only 13 of the visiting aviators were among the survivors. After the explosion, as the rescue operations commenced, the fleet was alerted and the area was searched for Allied submarines, but no traces were found. To avert the potential damage to morale from the loss of a battleship so soon after the string of recent setbacks in the war effort, Mutsus destruction was declared a state secret. Mass cremations of recovered bodies began almost immediately after the sinking. Captain Teruhiko Miyoshi's body was recovered by divers on 17 June, but his wife was not officially notified until 6 January 1944. Both he and his second in command, Captain Koro Oono, were posthumously promoted to rear admiral, as was normal practice. To further prevent rumours from spreading, healthy and recovered survivors were reassigned to various garrisons in the Pacific Ocean. Some of the survivors were sent to Truk in the Caroline Islands and assigned to the 41st Guard Force. Another 150 were sent to Saipan in the Mariana Islands, where most were killed