Ships
- IJN Ashigara Captain from 30 January 1944 · In command when she was lost, 8 June 1945
Hayao Miura was born on 21 July 1895. He passed through the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy with the 45th class, standing 27th among 89 graduates, and went on to the torpedo and gunnery schools. Gunnery shaped the first half of his career.
In the 1930s he served as gunnery officer of the light cruisers Hirado and Yura and of the battleships Hiei and Hyuga, with a turn as an instructor at the gunnery school between those appointments. Late in 1936 he went to the Navy Ministry. In November 1939 he returned to sea as executive officer of the battleship Kongo. During 1940 and 1941 he held special-duty command of the minelayer Erimo and then of the auxiliary transport Asakamaru.
After the Pacific War opened he served on the staff of the Maizuru Naval District and the Maizuru fortress command, with added duty on the staffs of the Eastern and Central Armies. In 1942 he moved to the Naval General Staff and the Navy Ministry and became chief of the first section of the Munitions Bureau. On 30 January 1944 he took command of the heavy cruiser Ashigara, relieving Masami Ban. The Myoko-class ship had already come through the early southern campaigns under Yoshiyuki Ichimiya and then under Ban.
Miura took Ashigara into the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944. She sailed with the heavy cruiser Nachi and eight destroyers in Vice Admiral Kiyohide Shima's force and entered Surigao Strait on the night of 24–25 October, after Vice Admiral Shoji Nishimura's ships had already been destroyed. Ashigara and Nachi launched their torpedoes and withdrew. Nachi was damaged in a collision with the cruiser Mogami. Ashigara cleared the strait, passed Palawan, and reached Brunei. The same night the battleship Fuso, with Ban in command, was lost with Nishimura's force. In mid-November Ashigara left Brunei with the battleship Haruna and the light cruiser Oyodo. At the Spratly Islands she flew Shima's flag for a short time, then went on to Cam Ranh Bay in December, where Shima shifted his flag to the battleship Hyuga.
Late that December Ashigara joined an attempt against the American landing on Mindoro, in company with Oyodo and several destroyers. On 26 December a 500-pound bomb struck her from the air. She remained fit to fight and shelled the beachhead the next day, then fell back toward the Singapore area.
In February 1945 the warships still isolated in the south were gathered into the Tenth Area Fleet, and Ashigara served in its Fifth Cruiser Squadron. Miura was promoted rear admiral on 1 May 1945 and stayed in command. On 8 June 1945 Ashigara was carrying about 1,600 soldiers and several hundred tons of supplies from Batavia, present-day Jakarta, toward Singapore, with the destroyer Kamikaze as her escort. In the northern entrance of the Bangka Strait she met the British submarine Trenchant, commanded by Arthur Hezlet. Allied codebreaking had already disclosed the movement, and Trenchant and the submarine Stygian were waiting in the strait, with the American submarine Blueback also nearby. Five of eight torpedoes from Trenchant's bow struck Ashigara along one side. She was already short an outer propeller after a grounding, and she answered the helm poorly as the hits came in. She capsized and sank shortly after half past noon, near 1°59' south, 104°56' east.
Kamikaze turned back from a short search for the submarine and picked up survivors: about 850 of the ship's company and about 400 of the soldiers. Miura came off the ship, and so did Vice Admiral Hashimoto of the Fifth Cruiser Squadron. More than a thousand of the troops and about a hundred of the crew went down with her. On 20 June 1945 Miura was appointed deputy chief of staff of the Second Southern Expeditionary Fleet. Ashigara was struck from the Navy list on 20 August 1945. Miura passed into the reserve on 26 July 1946 and died on 27 June 1958.