Haruna was an Imperial Japanese Navy battleship that was commissioned on 19 April 1915. Laid down at the Kawasaki Shipyards in Kobe in 1912, she was named for Mount Haruna in central Honshu; Haruna was also the sister ship of Kirishima. She patrolled off the China coast during World War I, and she was rebuilt from a battlecruiser to a battleship in 1926. The Haruna fought in nearly every major naval battle of the Pacific theater of World War II from 1941 to 1945, fighting at the Battle of Midway, the Battle of Santa Cruz, the Battle of the Philippine Sea, and the Battle of Leyte Gulf. On 24 July 1945, Haruna was damaged in the first wave of US Navy air raids on the Kure Naval Base, and she was sunk by eight bombs on 28 July 1945.