Ships
- IJN Kawakaze Captain from 15 November 1940
Kazuo Wakabayashi was an officer of the Imperial Japanese Navy and a graduate of the fifty-first class of the Naval Academy. He commanded the minesweeper No. 18 from December 1936 to December 1938 and the destroyer Kawakaze from 15 November 1940 to 28 November 1942, through the opening campaigns of the Pacific War, the Java Sea, and the first months of the Guadalcanal campaign, where on 22 August 1942 Kawakaze torpedoed and sank the American destroyer Blue.
Nothing is known of his birth, family, or schooling.
He belonged to the fifty-first class at Etajima. On 1 December 1936, as a lieutenant commander, he took command of the minesweeper No. 18, a ship that had been completed on 30 April 1936. He held her until 1 December 1938. The article on the ship says that she took part in operations in central and northern China from 1937 to 1939. Before Kawakaze he served as adjutant and staff officer of the Maizuru Guard District. On 15 November 1940 he was appointed to command Kawakaze, then a ship of the 24th Destroyer Division, which belonged to the Fourth Destroyer Squadron of the Second Fleet.
On 26 November 1941 the 24th Destroyer Division left Japan for Palau and the Philippines. Under Wakabayashi, Kawakaze went with the landing forces at Legaspi in December and at Lamon Bay on 24 December, and then into the Netherlands East Indies: Tarakan on 12 January 1942, Balikpapan on 23 January, Makassar on 8 February, and eastern Java on 27 February. On that day she was in the surface action of the Java Sea against the Allied cruisers and destroyers. In the early hours of 1 March she took 37 survivors of the Dutch cruiser Java aboard, and in the day's fighting she fired four torpedoes at the British cruiser Exeter, which was sunk that day with the destroyers Encounter and Pope; she is credited with a share in sinking all three. On 15 April he was promoted commander.
After convoy duty from Celebes to Singapore and operations in the Philippines, including the occupation of Panay and Negros, she went to Sasebo for repair at the end of April. She was in the Midway operation in June. On 14 July the division was reassigned to the Second Destroyer Squadron under Rear Admiral Raizō Tanaka and, in August, went to Truk and Guadalcanal.
On 22 August 1942 Kawakaze, sent in alone, reached Lunga Roads at about 1 a.m. Japanese time and at 2 a.m. found two American destroyers, Blue and Henley. She fired six torpedoes and six shells. One torpedo hit Blue, which was later scuttled. On the way north two American aircraft attacked and one man was seriously wounded. In the weeks that followed she made nine troop runs from the Shortlands to Guadalcanal between 27 August and 24 September, four of which were aborted, bombarded the island on 13 September, and went back to Truk at the end of that month. She escorted the battleships and cruisers that shelled Henderson Field in the middle of October and accompanied the Advance Force at the Battle of Santa Cruz on 26 October. In the naval battles of Guadalcanal in mid-November she escorted a troop convoy, and on 14 November she rescued 550 survivors of the sunk transport Brisbane Maru. On 18 November, in a run to Buna under the commander of the 8th Destroyer Division, she was bombed by B-17s and damaged.
On 28 November 1942 he was relieved by Lieutenant Commander Yoshio Yanase and went to the Naval General Staff.
The sources checked do not record his later service. Kawakaze was sunk at the Battle of Vella Gulf on 6–7 August 1943 under his successor.