Ships
- IJN Tamanami Captain from 30 April 1943
Eiji Sakuma was a commander in the Imperial Japanese Navy, a destroyer officer of the Naval Academy's 50th class with his registry in Yamaguchi Prefecture. His wartime sea duty was spent in the small-ship force that screened the fleet and fought the night actions of the Solomons.
Before he was given a new ship on the building ways, he had captained older destroyers: Yuzuki, for a time concurrently with Yayoi, and afterward Mutsuki and Kikuzuki. He then commanded Ayanami. On the night of 14–15 November 1942, in the surface battle off Guadalcanal that the Japanese navy recorded as the Third Battle of the Solomon Sea, Ayanami was lost after a close-range fight with American ships. Sakuma came through the sinking.
In February 1943 he was appointed chief of the fitting-out crew for the Yugumo-class destroyer Tamanami, finishing at the Fujinagata yard in Osaka, and the fitting-out office there opened before the end of the month. The ship commissioned on 30 April 1943, entered the rolls of the Maizuru Naval District, and Sakuma became her first captain. Tamanami joined Destroyer Squadron 11 of the First Fleet, the squadron that worked new destroyers up, and trained between Kure and the fleet anchorage at Hashirajima.
On 8 June 1943 Tamanami was at Hashirajima when the battleship Mutsu exploded at her moorings and sank. Sakuma's ship joined the rescue effort in the anchorage. On 1 July Tamanami left the training squadron for Destroyer Squadron 2 of the Second Fleet, which was preparing a move out toward Truk. On 7 July, while that deployment was still being made ready, Kyuji Aoki relieved Sakuma as captain. Sakuma had held the commissioned ship for a little over two months.
He went back to new construction as fitting-out officer and first captain of the Akizuki-class destroyer Fuyutsuki. Later he commanded Destroyer Division 43 and, in the April 1945 fleet sortie, directed an anti-submarine patrol group in the battle fought off Cape Bonomisaki. He survived the war, and after the surrender he served briefly as temporary captain of the old carrier Hosho.
Tamanami continued under the captains who followed him. Aoki in time became commander of Destroyer Division 32, and on 15 June 1944 Tomiji Chihagi took command of the ship. On 7 July 1944, west-southwest of Manila, the American submarine Mingo torpedoed Tamanami. She blew up and sank with those on board, Chihagi as her captain and Aoki as the division commander among them.