Ships
- IJN Michishio Captain from 15 October 1939
Ichitaro Oshima was an officer of the Imperial Japanese Navy. On 15 October 1939 he took command of the destroyer Michishio as a lieutenant commander, and during that appointment he was promoted to commander.
Michishio, whose name means high tide, was the third ship of the Asashio class. The Fujinagata yard in Osaka laid her down on 5 November 1935, launched her on 15 March 1937, and commissioned her on 31 October 1937. She was a large fleet destroyer of the late treaty years, built for high speed and a heavy torpedo battery. Before Oshima came aboard she had already operated off central China in the winter of 1937 and had gone into Sasebo Naval Arsenal for turbine work after machinery trouble appeared in the class.
His year in command was the last full year of peace. On 1 November 1939 the four destroyers of Destroyer Division 25 shifted to the Yokosuka Naval District and were re-formed as Destroyer Division 8, with Michishio in the new division. On 15 November the division joined the Second Destroyer Squadron of the Second Fleet, and the ships spent the months that followed on duty in Chinese waters. On 11 October 1940 the destroyers of the division took part in the special fleet review held off Yokohama to mark the 2,600th year of the imperial line.
Oshima left Michishio on 15 November 1940. Masami Ogura relieved him that day and was still captain when the Pacific War began. In the years that followed, command of the same destroyer passed to Kiyoshi Tomura, then to Yasuatsu Suzuki, and later to Noboru Haraguchi.
Under those later captains Michishio covered the opening landings in Malaya and the Philippines, fought through the Dutch East Indies and the Solomons, and was twice knocked out of action by heavy damage. On 25 October 1944 she was torpedoed and sunk in the night battle of Surigao Strait. All of that service came after Oshima had given up the ship.