Ships
- IJN Kirishima Captain from 15 August 1941
Jihei Yamaguchi was born on 20 August 1891. He entered the Imperial Japanese Navy through the Naval Academy’s 41st class and finished sixth in a class of 118. He went on to the torpedo school and the gunnery school. From 5 September 1929 he taught at the Naval Academy. On 1 July 1932 he took command of the destroyer Hatsuyuki, and on 15 November 1933 he became executive officer of the light cruiser Kiso.
Shore appointments followed. From 15 November 1934 he served on the staff of the Yokosuka Guard Squadron, and from 2 December 1935 he was a staff officer of the Yokosuka Naval District while also serving the Tokyo Bay Fortress. On 1 December 1937 he returned to sea as captain of the light cruiser Tatsuta. Through the summer of 1938 Tatsuta worked the China coast with the Tenth Squadron, first under the Third Fleet and then under the Fifth Fleet, during the war in China. He left the cruiser on 20 August 1938 for duty with the Naval General Staff and the Navy Ministry, and on 10 October 1938 he became chief of the Second Section of the Naval Affairs Bureau.
On 1 November 1940 Yamaguchi took command of the heavy cruiser Takao. He held her until 15 August 1941, when he was appointed captain of the fast battleship Kirishima. Kirishima was a rebuilt Kongō-class ship, paired with her sister Hiei in the First Section of Battleship Division 3. That section formed the heavy screen for Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo’s carrier striking force.
Late in November 1941 Kirishima sailed from Hitokappu Bay in the Kurils with the force bound for Hawaii. On 7 December she stayed with the screen while the carriers struck Pearl Harbor, and her floatplanes patrolled around the fleet. She was back in Japan before the end of the year. In January 1942 she covered the landings at Rabaul and Kavieng. In February the battleship division moved south into the Dutch East Indies campaign and operated from Staring Bay in support of the carriers.
On 1 March 1942, south of Java, the force sighted the American destroyer Edsall. Nagumo sent Hiei, Kirishima, and the heavy cruisers Tone and Chikuma after her. Carrier dive bombers slowed the destroyer, and the surface ships closed in. Kirishima opened fire late in the chase with her main battery and her secondary guns, putting 87 fourteen-inch shells and 62 six-inch shells into the action. Edsall went down under that combined gunfire and the bombing. On 5 March Kirishima and Hiei, still off Java, came upon the Dutch patrol vessel Hoofdinspecteur Zeeman, already damaged by air attack, and sank her between them. Kirishima then stayed with the carriers for the April raid into the Indian Ocean, screening the strikes against Colombo and Trincomalee, and started for home by way of Singapore.
On 20 April 1942, as Kirishima steamed back toward Japan, Yamaguchi left the ship. Sanji Iwabuchi became captain that day and was still in command when Kirishima was lost off Guadalcanal on 15 November 1942. Yamaguchi’s new post was chief of staff of the First Surface Escort Force, formed that April under the Southwest Area Fleet to protect shipping between the home islands and occupied Southeast Asia. The force was made up largely of older destroyers, torpedo boats, and converted merchant ships. He was promoted to rear admiral on 1 November 1942 and left the escort staff on 21 January 1943.
Yamaguchi remained in the navy through the rest of the war. On 1 November 1945 he was promoted to vice admiral, and on 15 November 1945 he was placed on the retired list. He died on 19 March 1985.