Ships
- IJN Kawakaze Captain from 15 November 1939
- IJN Yudachi Captain from 25 May 1942
Kiyoshi Kikkawa was born in Hiroshima on 3 November 1900, the fourth son in a large family, and his father was a scholar of the Chinese classics. Slight as a boy, he fell short of the naval academy's height and chest measurements on his first try. He was accepted later, passed out with the fiftieth class, and was commissioned in 1922. He spent his career in the torpedo branch and in destroyers, including an advanced torpedo course and a tour as torpedo officer of the heavy cruiser Chokai. In the mid-1930s he began the run of small-ship commands that defined him, starting with Sumire and continuing through Harukaze, Yayoi, and Yamakaze. Men who served under him remembered a quiet, neatly dressed captain who looked after his crew and fought with unusual nerve once a night action began.
He took command of the Shiratsuyu-class destroyer Kawakaze on 15 November 1939, still a lieutenant commander. A year later he was promoted to commander and moved to the newer destroyer Oshio. Kazuo Wakabayashi followed him in Kawakaze. The ship remained in service under Yoshio Yanase until American destroyers sank her, with Yanase aboard, at the Battle of Vella Gulf in August 1943. Kikkawa was already at sea in Oshio when the Pacific War opened. His first distinguished action came on the night of 19–20 February 1942 in the Battle of Badung Strait, off Bali. Oshio and the rest of Destroyer Division 8 met a Dutch and American force in a tangled night fight. Torpedoes from the division helped sink the Dutch destroyer Piet Hein and left other Allied ships damaged, and Oshio took hits of her own. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto afterward commended the division.
On 25 May 1942 he became captain of Yudachi, another Shiratsuyu-class destroyer, relieving Hisashi Ishii. Terumichi Arimoto had commanded her before the war. Yudachi screened the carriers at Midway, then went south for Guadalcanal. Through late summer and autumn Kikkawa ran the night supply trips into the island, landing troops and stores on the north coast and clearing the coast before daylight.
He used whatever time remained after a landing. On the night of 4–5 September 1942, once the troops were ashore, he took Yudachi into the anchorage off Lunga with Hatsuyuki and Murakumo. The three destroyers caught the American high-speed transports Little and Gregory there and sank both. Late in October, aircraft left the light cruiser Yura disabled north of the island. Yudachi went alongside, took men off, and joined Harusame in finishing the cruiser with torpedoes.
The night of 12–13 November 1942 fixed his reputation. Yudachi and Harusame led Rear Admiral Hiroaki Abe's bombardment force down the Slot toward Henderson Field. A squall split the formation, and Yudachi ended up inside the American line. In the melee she put a torpedo into the heavy cruiser Portland and wrecked that ship's steering, so Portland could only steam in circles. American gunfire then disabled Yudachi. She lost power and burned. Twenty-six of her men were killed, the chief engineer among them. Kikkawa stayed until the living were clear. Around 2:25 a.m. the destroyer Samidare took off 207 survivors, and her captain was the last man to leave. A torpedo from Samidare left the hulk still afloat. After daylight, American ships sank the abandoned Yudachi.
He asked to remain with the operating fleet and set aside a proposed assignment as an instructor at the naval academy. He received the new destroyer Onami and returned to the Solomons. On the night of 25 November 1943, off Cape St. George, American destroyers detected Onami by radar at the start of the Battle of Cape St. George and sank her with torpedoes. No one from the ship survived. Kikkawa was forty-three. After his death the Navy advanced him two grades, to rear admiral, an honor seldom given to a destroyer captain.