She was the only ship that could do field repair for the Japanese navy. Having Akashi at Truk was vital for the Japanese fleet, as pulling assets to the various naval districts for minor repairs would seriously hamper the ability for the fleet to maintain adequate number in the enormous theater.
Also as mentioned above, ships in the South Pacific theatre had access to fuel oil (or in some cases even were able to accept crude directly without waiting for refinement) but without Akashi's facilities they would have had to make a round trip of up to 7,000 miles (around 11,200km) to the mainland which had no way to resupply the vessels for the return leg of the journey. Japan had so few fuel resources that school kids and teachers across the country were made to dig up pine roots to make pine oil which was REALLY bad for engines and not available in anything like the amounts even a few destroyers would need, let alone the bigger girls in the fleet.
She may not have got the recognition that the carriers or battleships got but she was definitely the idol of the fleet.
So vital to the war effort that her loss essentially forces the Japanese to abandon ships like the IJN Myoukou when they become damaged, rather than try to repair them. This is why you shoot the repair ship first...
Akashi is the only ship in Japanese Navy designed and built as a construction ship. While the big hitters get all the attention, she's a very important logistic ship.Back to the story.
With her equipment, Akashi became the mobile factory of the Combined Fleet and the vital point of the fleet's repair.
While going to Truk, she performed repair on Mogami who had been damaged in the Battle of Midway on the sea. After she arrived, she performed repair on Chitose, Ootaka, Murasame, Chikuma, Teruzuki, Amatsukaze, Sendai, Agano, Akizuki, Kumano, Yakaze and many others. Imagine the long line of patients waiting to meet the doctor.In modern day, Akashi's name was inherited by JMSDF ocean observation ship (JS Akashi, AGS-5101).There is this episode of Akashi. In 1940, the crew of Akashi were welcoming the new year on the sea. They wanted to make mochi, but they didn't have a mortar nor a mallet.
So they decided to make that equipment themselves. But instead of a chisel and plane, they used their large sized lathe and as result the wood became soft and easily chipped
Nobody realized this when they were pounding the mochi. Only when the mochi was done did they realize that it was filled with wooden chips.
But because it was a new year celebration, they ate the mochi with tears from their eyes.Another story is when the submarine i-156 got stranded on Miyakojima. Akashi tried to pull the submarine, but even after moving all the submarine's cargo to Akashi, the submarine still wouldn't budge.
Then, the light cruiser Jintsuu made a circular course at high speed and let the large wave she caused wash over the submarine. Following the timing of the wave, Akashi finally managed to dislodge the submarine.
(from Recollection of Repair Ship Akashi)Before Akashi was constructed, the Japanese Navy modified the captured Russian steam ship Manchuria and operate her as the repair ship Kantou. But this ship sank in an accident in 1924.
Now they wanted a real repair ship.
But, ignoring budget, the (② Plan) was approved in 1934 and finally construction was started in Sasebo Shipyard in January 1937. Construction was finished on July 31st 1937.
Her hull design was a flat-deck type (all the exposed deck from bow to stern was made into a single deck). This gave her more space internally and three large cranes were installed on the deck.
There were 17 workshops in her hull and they worked on everything from milling to finishing. For this, they had 144 units of the latest machine tools imported from Germany that even facilities on the mainland didn't have. Thanks to this, Akashi had a very high repairing capacity.Of course this was also known to the enemy and there were orders that put her destruction at a higher priority than even Yamato.
She was heavily damaged in an air raid on Truk in February 1944, forcing her to retreat to Palau. Then on March 30th, she hit the bottom after receiving 13 bombs from an air raid on Palau.During the war, Akashi's sister ship Mihara was planned in the "Improved Circle-5 Plan", but because the situation worsened, her construction was halted.After losing Akashi, damaged Japanese ships in the southern front were forced to return to the mainland for repairs. This separated the southern front which had fuel but couldn't do repairs and the mainland which could perform repairs but didn't have enough fuel. Japan had essentially lost its ability to continue the war.