Ships
- IJN Hatsukaze Captain from 15 February 1940
Kameshiro Takahashi was an officer of the Imperial Japanese Navy, born on 13 August 1900. He passed out of the naval academy with the 49th class and was commissioned on 16 July 1921. His first ship was the armored cruiser Yakumo. The next year he moved to the light cruiser Tama, then took the basic gunnery and torpedo courses. Junior sea duty followed in the destroyer Kiku and in the submarines RO-15 and I-51.
Torpedo work became his specialty. He served as torpedo officer in the destroyers Kawakaze, Tachikaze, Matsukaze, and Oboro, with an advanced course at the torpedo school between those appointments. His first command came in September 1933, the old destroyer Fuji. In November 1934 he took Hatakaze. After a short attachment at Yokosuka in the summer of 1936 he commanded Harusame, and in December 1938 he took the newer destroyer Akebono. Those years coincided with the war in China, when fleet destroyers spent long periods on that coast.
On 15 November 1939 he was ordered to Kobe as chief of the fitting-out crew for a Kagero-class destroyer on the ways at Kawasaki. The ship was completed on 15 February 1940, and that day Takahashi became captain of Hatsukaze. She entered Destroyer Division 16 with Yukikaze, Tokitsukaze, and Amatsukaze, under Destroyer Squadron 2 of the Second Fleet, and was borne on the rolls of the Kure Naval District. The months before the Pacific War were spent working her up with that division.
Late in November 1941 the division left the Terashima Strait and arrived at Palau on 1 December. Hatsukaze screened the carrier Ryujo in the opening move against the southern Philippines, and on 20 December she was with the force that landed at Davao. Through the first weeks of 1942 she covered further landings: Menado on 11 January, Kendari on 24 January, Ambon at the end of the month, and Timor on 20 February. On 27 and 28 February she sailed with the Eastern Java invasion force and joined the Japanese torpedo attack in the Battle of the Java Sea. In March she was present for the seizure of Christmas Island. At the start of June she escorted the troop convoy sent toward Midway.
In July 1942 Destroyer Division 16 transferred to Destroyer Squadron 10 of the Third Fleet. On 24 August, during the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, Hatsukaze screened Admiral Chuichi Nagumo's carrier force. Takahashi stayed in the ship through the autumn. He left her in December 1942, and command passed to Michio Oka. Before the month was out Takahashi was appointed commander of Destroyer Division 6, then composed of Ikazuchi, Inazuma, and Hibiki.
He kept that division into the next year. From 15 February 1944 he was again attached to the Yokosuka Naval District, and on 25 March he became commander of Destroyer Division 4. Between 10 May and 1 June 1944 he also served as captain of the division's destroyer Michishio, then continued as division commander. In the Battle of Surigao Strait, before dawn on 25 October 1944, Michishio was sunk and Takahashi was killed. The navy promoted him to rear admiral on the date of his death. Hatsukaze had already gone, on 2 November 1943 in the Battle of Empress Augusta Bay. Under a later captain, Buichi Ashida, she lost her bow in a collision with the heavy cruiser Myoko and was finished by American destroyer gunfire.