to assist in the invasion of the Aleutian Islands. Kongō and her sisters engaged American naval forces in the Battle of Guadalcanal. During this engagement Kongō and Haruna bombarded Henderson Field with 430 14-inch and 33 6-inch shells on 13 October 1942. Following armament and armour upgrades in late 1943 and early 1944, Kongō sailed as part of Admiral Jisaburō Ozawa's Mobile Fleet during the Battle of the Philippine Sea. During the Battle of Leyte Gulf, Kongō sortied as part of Admiral Kurita's Center Force, scoring hits on an American escort carrier and sinking or damaging two destroyers during the Battle off Samar. Kongō and an escort, , were sunk northwest of Taiwan on 21 November 1944 by the submarine , after being hit on the port bow by two or three torpedoes. Approximately 1,200 of her crew—including her Captain and the commander of the Third Battleship Division, Vice Admiral Yoshio Suzuki—were lost. She was removed from the Navy List on 20 January 1945. Hiei Hiei was laid down at Yokosuka Naval Arsenal on 4 November 1911, launched 21 November 1912, and commissioned at Sasebo 4 August 1914, attached to the Third Battleship Division of the First Fleet. After conducting patrols off China and in the East China Sea during World War I, Hiei was placed in reserve in 1920. After undergoing minor reconstructions in 1924 and 1927, Hiei was demilitarized in 1929 to avoid being scrapped under the terms of the Washington Treaty; she was converted to a training ship in Kure from 1929 to 1932. All of her armour and most of her armament were removed under the restrictions of the treaty and carefully preserved. In 1933, she was refitted as an Imperial Service Ship and—following further reconstruction in 1934—became the Emperor's ship in late 1935. In 1937, following Japan's withdrawal from the London Treaty, Hiei underwent a massive reconstruction along lines similar to those of her sister ships. When the reconstruction was completed on 31 January 1940, Hiei was reclassified as a battleship. Hiei sailed in November 1941 as an escort of Vice-Admiral Chuichi Nagumo's carrier force which attacked Pearl Harbor. Hiei provided escort cover during carrier raids on Darwin in February 1942, before a joint engagement with Kirishima that sank an American destroyer in March. She participated in carrier actions against Ceylon and Midway Island, and was subsequently drydocked in July. Following carrier escort duty during