Ships
- IJN Hayashio Captain from 1 September 1941
- IJN Niizuki Captain from 31 March 1943
Kiyoshi Kaneda was a commander in the Imperial Japanese Navy who led destroyers through the Pacific War. On 1 September 1941 he became captain of the Kagerō-class ship Hayashio. After that destroyer was lost, he became the first captain of the Akizuki-class ship Niizuki on 31 March 1943. He was killed with Niizuki in the Solomon Islands on 6 July 1943, and the navy promoted him to captain the same day.
Kaneda had already commanded the destroyers Nagatsuki, Kikuzuki, and Shigure. His appointment to Hayashio placed him in Destroyer Division 15, in Destroyer Squadron 2 of the Second Fleet. Late in November 1941 the division left home waters for Palau, a forward base for the opening attacks in the south.
From Palau, Hayashio screened the carrier Ryūjō during the landings in the southern Philippines, including the strike on Davao, and worked with the minelayer Yaeyama. In the weeks that followed she covered further movements as Japanese forces pushed through the Dutch East Indies. Those months were spent on escort and covering duty, and the destroyer came through them still in commission.
In the Midway operation of early June 1942, Hayashio escorted seaplane carriers of the Eleventh Carrier Squadron, among them Chitose and Kamikawa Maru. From August she was drawn into the Guadalcanal campaign. She was at sea for the Eastern Solomons operation and, at the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands in late October, screened the carrier Jun'yō. Between the fleet actions she made reinforcement runs to Guadalcanal. During the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, from 13 to 15 November 1942, she flew the flag of Rear Admiral Raizō Tanaka with the troop convoy and its escort. After the battle she went to Kavieng with the cruisers Maya and Suzuya and the light cruiser Tenryū.
On 23 November 1942 Hayashio left Rabaul on a transport run to Lae. The next night, off the north coast of New Guinea, United States Army B-17s attacked the ships. A bomb hit Hayashio forward, fire spread, and a forward magazine exploded. Kaneda ordered the crew to abandon ship. The destroyer Shiratsuyu took the survivors off, and the burning ship was sunk in Guna Bay in the Huon Gulf, near 7° south and 147°30′ east. About fifty of her men were dead. Hayashio was removed from the navy list on 24 December 1942.
Kaneda’s next ship was still completing. On 20 February 1943 he was appointed chief of the fitting-out crew of Niizuki at Nagasaki. She commissioned on 31 March 1943, and that day he became her captain. Niizuki was registered at Yokosuka and joined the Eleventh Destroyer Squadron, the formation that worked up new destroyers. Through April she trained between Sasebo, Kure, and Hashirajima, and she escorted the heavy cruiser Mogami to Kure as the navy shifted ships after the American landing on Attu. She carried a Type 21 search radar on her foremast.
On 16 June 1943 Niizuki left Japan with a large destroyer force screening fleet units bound for Saipan, and by early July she was in the Solomons. For the Kula Gulf operation she flew the flag of Rear Admiral Teruo Akiyama, commander of Destroyer Squadron 3. On the night of 5 July, off Kolombangara, Japanese destroyers covering a run to Vila fired torpedoes at American ships that were shelling the coast. Niizuki is credited with the torpedo that sank the destroyer Strong. The range is disputed, and some estimates put the shot near 22,000 yards.
The next night Akiyama’s squadron met an American force of cruisers and destroyers in the Battle of Kula Gulf. Radar-directed gunfire fell on Niizuki, the leading Japanese ship. She sank shortly after 1:00 a.m. on 6 July 1943, east of Kolombangara. About 290 of her company died, Kaneda and Akiyama among them, and the squadron staff died with the flagship.