Ships
- IJN Hayanami Captain from 31 July 1943 · In command when she was lost, 7 June 1944
Commander Itsuro Shimizu was a career officer of the Imperial Japanese Navy and a graduate of the Naval Academy's 51st class. Before he took his last ship he had already commanded the destroyers Uzuki, Akebono, and Umikaze. In June 1943 the Navy sent him to Maizuru to stand by a new fleet destroyer that was nearly ready for sea.
On 25 June 1943 he was named chief of the fitting-out crew of Hayanami, a Yugumo-class destroyer at Maizuru Naval Arsenal. Her keel had been laid on 15 January 1942, and she had been launched on 19 December 1942. The ship was completed on 31 July 1943. That day Shimizu became her captain, still a commander, and took her into commission.
Hayanami first joined the 11th Destroyer Squadron for training. On 20 August 1943 she entered the newly formed Destroyer Division 32 with Fujinami and Suzunami. Captain Giichiro Nakahara, commander of the division, made her his flagship, while Shimizu remained captain of the ship. In the middle of October the division carried troops from Saeki out to Truk. Later that month Hayanami ran from Truk to Ponape on 22–24 October and again on 26–28 October.
Early in November she screened Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita's cruisers into Rabaul. On 5 November American carrier aircraft bombed the anchorage. Hayanami maneuvered through the harbor and came through intact, while her division mate Suzunami was sunk. Shimizu then kept the destroyer on escort work among Truk, Palau, and Saipan, screening oilers and transports on routes where American submarines were active. On 15 April 1944 Captain Tsuneo Orita succeeded Nakahara as commander of Destroyer Division 32 and embarked in Hayanami. Shimizu continued as captain. The division followed the fleet to Lingga and, late in the spring, to the anchorage at Tawi-Tawi.
On 7 June 1944 Hayanami was south of Tawi-Tawi, searching for the destroyer Minazuki, which had not returned from a hunt for an American submarine, and sweeping for submarines herself. She met Harder, under Samuel D. Dealey. Shimizu turned the destroyer toward the periscope and closed to attack. Harder fired three torpedoes from very short range, and two of them hit. Hayanami broke up and went down by the stern within minutes, about thirty-five miles east of Borneo. Shimizu was killed. Orita, the division commander aboard the ship, was killed as well. Urakaze later took forty-five survivors from the water. The Navy advanced Shimizu to captain with effect from the day he died. On 10 August 1944 Hayanami was formally removed from the Navy after her loss.