| rdfs:comment | - The first phase of the Eight-Eight plan began in 1910, when the Diet of Japan authorized the construction of one battleship (Fusō) and four battlecruisers of the Kongō class. Designed by British naval architect George Thurston, the first of these battlecruisers (Kongō) was constructed in Britain by Vickers, while the remaining three were constructed in Japan. Armed with eight guns and with a top speed of , they were the most advanced capital ships of their time. At the height of the First World War, an additional four battlecruisers of the Amagi class were ordered. The ships would have had a main battery of ten guns, but none were ever completed as battlecruisers, as the Washington Naval Treaty limited the size of the navies of Japan, Britain and the United States. Before the Second World
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| abstract | - The first phase of the Eight-Eight plan began in 1910, when the Diet of Japan authorized the construction of one battleship (Fusō) and four battlecruisers of the Kongō class. Designed by British naval architect George Thurston, the first of these battlecruisers (Kongō) was constructed in Britain by Vickers, while the remaining three were constructed in Japan. Armed with eight guns and with a top speed of , they were the most advanced capital ships of their time. At the height of the First World War, an additional four battlecruisers of the Amagi class were ordered. The ships would have had a main battery of ten guns, but none were ever completed as battlecruisers, as the Washington Naval Treaty limited the size of the navies of Japan, Britain and the United States. Before the Second World War, a further class of two battlecruisers were planned (Design B-65), but more pressing naval priorities and a faltering war effort ensured these ships never reached the construction phase. Of the eight battlecruiser hulls laid down by Japan (the four Kongō and four Amagi class), none survived the Second World War. Amagi was being converted to an aircraft carrier when her hull was catastrophically damaged by the Great Kantō Earthquake in 1923 and subsequently broken up, while the last two of the Amagi class were scrapped in 1924 according to the terms of the Washington Treaty.Akagi was converted to an aircraft carrier in the 1920s, but was scuttled after suffering severe damage from air attacks during the Battle of Midway on 5 June 1942. The four Kongō-class ships were lost in action as well: two during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal in November 1942, one by American submarine in November 1944, and one by American aircraft at Kure Naval Base in July 1945.
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