Ships
- IJN Sazanami Captain from 20 July 1942
Lieutenant Commander Akiji Suga, of the Naval Academy’s 56th class, became captain of the destroyer Sazanami on 20 July 1942. He relieved Hiroshi Uwai, who was leaving to command Hamakaze, and he came to the ship from the torpedo boat Tomozuru. Sazanami was a Fubuki-class destroyer, her name a word for ripples, and she served in Destroyer Division 7 with Ushio and Akebono. On 14 July, days before Suga took her, the division had been placed under Combined Fleet headquarters after a patrol southwest of the Aleutians.
For the next year and a half Sazanami stayed with that division, screening heavier ships and moving between home waters and the southern bases. On 14 October 1942 she entered Kure with the escort carrier Taiyo and the destroyer Tokitsukaze.
The sharpest fight of his command came off Vella Lavella. On 18 August 1943 Sazanami wore the flag of Rear Admiral Matsuji Ijuin, commander of Destroyer Squadron 3, and steamed with Shigure, Hamakaze, and Isokaze while barges tried to land troops at Horaniu. Four American destroyers, Nicholas, O'Bannon, Taylor, and Chevalier, met them. Torpedoes fired by both sides missed. Gunfire damaged Hamakaze and Isokaze. Sazanami came through undamaged, and most of the barges still put their men ashore.
Suga was still in Sazanami at the close of 1943, when she and Akebono were running supplies forward, including a trip to Qavuvu. On 1 January 1944 Destroyer Division 7 joined Destroyer Squadron 1 of the Fifth Fleet. On 10 January the navy ordered Suga to the destroyer Amatsukaze and ordered Lieutenant Commander Masao Hashimoto to take Sazanami. That relief never took effect. Hashimoto went to Shirakumo instead, and Suga remained captain of Sazanami.
On 12 January Sazanami and Akebono left Rabaul to meet tankers on the way from Palau to Truk. Two days later, about three hundred miles southeast of Yap, the submarine Albacore hit Sazanami with two torpedoes. The hull broke, and the ship sank in less than three minutes. One hundred fifty-three men were killed, Suga among them. Akebono rescued the eighty-nine survivors. Sazanami was removed from the Navy List on 10 March 1944.