Aritomo Goto was a rear admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy whose wartime command was a cruiser division, not a single ship. He is remembered for leading Cruiser Division 6 from the opening months of the Pacific War through the fighting around Guadalcanal in 1942.
Cruiser Division 6 was built around the heavy cruisers Aoba, Kinugasa, Kako, and Furutaka. Goto flew his flag in the division and directed those ships as a group. He was not captain of any of them. Each cruiser kept its own commanding officer while he remained the division commander.
In December 1941 the division took part in the second attempt to seize Wake Island. On 23 December 1941, Aoba, Kinugasa, Kako, and Furutaka joined the attack force with him for that landing. They were not in the 11 December bombardment, when the first assault was driven off. The later landing succeeded, and Wake fell to Japanese forces on 23 December.
Through the first half of 1942 the same four cruisers stayed under his direction in the South Pacific. The division covered operations after Rabaul was occupied and operated with the forces supporting the advance toward Port Moresby and the Solomon Islands. Kako was lost in August 1942 after the Battle of Savo Island, torpedoed by an American submarine while returning toward Kavieng. The remaining cruisers of the division continued under Goto.
On the night of 11–12 October 1942, Goto led Aoba, Kinugasa, and Furutaka, with two destroyers, toward Guadalcanal. The mission was to bombard Henderson Field and cover a reinforcement run. Off Cape Esperance an American cruiser-destroyer force was already at sea. The two columns met in the dark. Japanese lookouts were slow to identify the ships ahead as hostile, and Goto’s formation was caught while still closing.
Gunfire and torpedoes hit the Japanese column hard. Furutaka was sunk. Aoba, Goto’s flagship, was badly damaged, and he was mortally wounded on her bridge during the action. He died of those wounds soon afterward. Kinugasa survived the night and withdrew with the damaged flagship.
The fight, later called the Battle of Cape Esperance, was a sharp American tactical success and the end of Goto’s command. Cruiser Division 6 passed to other officers. Aoba was repaired and returned to service. Kinugasa was sunk the following month in the naval battle of Guadalcanal. Goto’s short wartime career is tied to that division: the Wake landing of 23 December 1941, the early Solomon Islands campaign, and his death off Cape Esperance in October 1942.