Pacific ships

IJN · Commander

Makino, Hiroshi

All captains
HM

Ships

Commander Hiroshi Makino was a destroyer officer of the Imperial Japanese Navy. He commanded Hatsuharu through the first year of the Pacific War, and from December 1943 he was the first captain of the new fleet destroyer Okinami.

He had taken Hatsuharu on 27 September 1940, while still a lieutenant commander, and he was in command on 1 March 1942. On 15 October 1941 he was promoted to commander in the same post. Hatsuharu, the name ship of her class, had been completed at Sasebo in 1933. The design was top-heavy, and after the torpedo boat Tomozuru capsized in a squall in 1934 the Navy rebuilt the class. She went to war in that altered form, in Destroyer Division 21 of the 1st Destroyer Squadron, 1st Fleet, with Nenohi, Wakaba, and Hatsushimo.

In June 1942 the division went north for the Aleutian operation, and Hatsuharu served in that screen. Early in July the division lost Nenohi to an American submarine in Aleutian waters. Makino stayed in Hatsuharu through the summer and autumn. On 25 October 1942 the division flagship became Wakaba. He was relieved on 15 November 1942. The ship remained in service after him. Kiyoshi Tobita commanded her in 1943, and Yasunosuke Okuma commanded her in her last weeks.

Okinami was a Yugumo-class destroyer, a larger and newer ship than Hatsuharu, laid down at Maizuru Naval Arsenal in August 1942 and launched on 18 July 1943. Her name means the waves of the open sea. In November 1943 Makino was sent to supervise her fitting out. On 10 December 1943 the arsenal completed her, and he became her captain that day. She carried six 127-millimeter guns, eight tubes for the Navy's heavy oxygen torpedoes, and a crew of about 228.

In June 1944 Okinami left Tawi-Tawi with the battleships Yamato and Musashi. The battleships had begun a troop run and were then ordered to join the carriers. On 19 and 20 June, in the battle of the Philippine Sea, the ships around her met light air attack, and Okinami came through those two days without damage. She was with Yamato when that battleship fired on Japanese aircraft returning to their carriers. In November she was in the Philippines and, in the first days of the month, helped escort troops from Manila toward Ormoc. On 5 November near misses and strafing in an air raid left 28 casualties. On 13 November 1944 American carrier aircraft sank Okinami in Manila Bay, the same day carrier aircraft also sank Hatsuharu there. Okinami was removed from the Navy list on 10 January 1945.