Pacific ships

IJN · Lieutenant Commander

Higashi, Hideo

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HH

Ships

Hideo Higashi was an Imperial Japanese Navy destroyer captain. As a lieutenant commander he took command of the Fubuki-class destroyer Murakumo on 10 April 1941, and he was still her captain when she was lost on 12 October 1942. On 28 November 1942 he became captain of the Kagero-class destroyer Oyashio.

Murakumo went to war in Destroyer Division 12. Through the opening months of 1942 she screened invasion groups in the South China Sea and the Netherlands East Indies, and in February she escorted the heavy cruiser Chokai for the landings on Bangka and at Palembang. In mid-April she returned by way of Singapore and Cam Ranh Bay to the Kure Navy Yard for maintenance. On 4 and 5 June she steamed with Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's Main Body at Midway, the covering force that stayed west of the carrier battle. Afterward she was earmarked for a raid into the Indian Ocean. That operation was cancelled, and by late summer Murakumo was working from the Shortland Islands against Guadalcanal.

From Shortland she made the night reinforcement runs known along the Slot. In the dark of 4–5 September 1942, Murakumo, Hatsuyuki, and Yudachi caught the American high-speed transports Gregory and Little off Guadalcanal and sank them with gunfire. On 11 October she sailed again, with Asagumo, Natsugumo, and other destroyers, escorting the seaplane carriers Nisshin and Chitose. That night an American force badly damaged the heavy cruiser Furutaka in the Battle of Cape Esperance. After daybreak on 12 October, while Murakumo was assisting Furutaka and taking men from the water, American aircraft attacked. Near misses, a torpedo, and a bomb left her burning and unable to steer, and twenty-two of her crew were killed. Shirayuki took off the survivors, Higashi among them, and scuttled Murakumo with a torpedo about ninety nautical miles west-northwest of Savo Island. The Navy removed her from the list on 15 November 1942.

A new command followed within weeks. On 28 November 1942 Higashi succeeded Tokiyoshi Arima as captain of Oyashio, a ship of Destroyer Division 15. He kept her on the night transport runs that supplied Japanese garrisons in the Solomons. After the evacuation of Guadalcanal in February 1943, those trips reached up the island chain to New Georgia and Kolombangara.

Early on 8 May 1943, homeward bound from Kolombangara, Oyashio, Kuroshio, and Kagero entered a minefield in Blackett Strait. Kuroshio sank quickly. Mines left Oyashio stopped, and American aircraft sank her later that day. Ninety-one of her men were killed. Higashi reached a nearby shore with the commander of Destroyer Division 15 and many of the crew, and soldiers on the island later brought them out. His appointment in Oyashio ended on 1 June 1943, by which time he was a commander. On 20 June the Navy struck Oyashio, Kuroshio, and Kagero together and disbanded Destroyer Division 15.

Higashi then served as an instructor at the Mie Naval Air Group. On 1 December 1944 he returned to a ship, as fitting-out officer of the new Akizuki-class destroyer Hanazuki, and he became her first captain. Hanazuki remained afloat through the last months of the war. After the surrender he also commanded the destroyer Yukikaze while she carried Japanese servicemen home from overseas.