Ships
- IJN Oi Captain from 12 February 1944 · In command when she was sunk, 19 July 1944; survived
Katsuo Shiba was a captain in the Imperial Japanese Navy who commanded the light cruiser Oi from 12 February 1944 to 19 July 1944. He survived her sinking.
The sources used here do not record his date or place of birth or anything about his family.
He graduated from the Naval Academy at Etajima in its 50th class, and before this command he had been captain of the destroyer Hibiki.
He took command on 12 February 1944. In late February Oi sailed from Singapore with Kinu to escort the heavy cruisers Tone, Chikuma and Aoba at the start of their Indian Ocean raid. On 23 April, in the Makassar Strait, the destroyer Amagiri struck a mine and sank about 600 meters off her starboard side. On 19 July 1944, in the South China Sea about 570 miles south of Hong Kong, USS Flasher hit Oi with two torpedoes aft. One was a dud; the other flooded her after engine room. She sank by the stern at 1725. The destroyer Shikinami rescued him and 368 men; 153 were lost.
He was later chief of the propaganda bureau of the Naval General Staff. On 2 September 1945 he was one of the three Navy representatives in the Japanese delegation at the surrender aboard USS Missouri, with Rear Admirals Sadatoshi Tomioka and Ichiro Yokoyama.