Ships
- IJN Yugure Captain from 15 October 1940
Commander Kiyoshi Kamo took command of the Imperial Japanese Navy destroyer Yugure on 15 October 1940. He was her captain from that day, responsible for the ship and her company, and he held the rank of commander.
Yugure was a Hatsuharu-class fleet destroyer, one of six built in the early 1930s under the tonnage limits of the London naval treaty. Designers had tried to fit a heavy gun and torpedo battery onto a modest hull. The first ships of the class proved top-heavy on trials and were altered. Yugure was completed at Maizuru in March 1935 to a revised, more stable design. She carried 12.7-centimeter guns and tubes for the navy's long-range oxygen torpedoes, and her designed speed was about 36 knots.
The destroyer had already been in commission for five years when Kamo came aboard. Japan was deep in the war in China, and in late September 1940 the government had signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy. A destroyer captain met that turn of policy in the training schedule. Yugure worked at gunnery, torpedo fire, and the precise station-keeping expected of a screening ship. Night practice carried particular weight, because Japanese fleet doctrine called on destroyers to close an enemy in the dark and to launch torpedoes before heavier guns could decide the action.
Life aboard was the life of a small, hard-driven ship. Freeboard was low, quarters were tight, and the captain's standing orders reached every watch. Kamo answered for navigation, engineering readiness, ammunition, and the conduct of the crew. His command began on 15 October 1940, with Yugure a first-line destroyer and the Imperial Navy bending its drills toward the chance of war with the United States and Britain. The speed to stay with a striking force, and the torpedo armament the fleet trusted in a night battle, were what he had under his hand.