Ships
- IJN Hatsuharu Captain from 10 September 1943 · Relieved on 1 April 1944
- IJN Naganami Captain from 1 June 1944
Commander Kiyoshi Tobita was an Imperial Japanese Navy officer whose sea commands came late in the Pacific War. At the outbreak of the war he was torpedo officer of the light cruiser Kitakami. The ships that define his record are the destroyer Hatsuharu and, after her, the fleet destroyer Naganami.
He became captain of Hatsuharu on 10 September 1943. She was the lead ship of her class, completed at the Sasebo Naval Arsenal in September 1933, a smaller destroyer than the big Fubuki type but still given a heavy gun and torpedo battery. Tobita remained in her through the winter. On 1 April 1944 he was relieved by Yoshiharu Nagakura.
On 1 June 1944 he was appointed captain of Naganami, coming across from the Yokosuka Naval District. She was a Yūgumo-class destroyer, built at Fujinagata in Osaka and completed on 30 June 1942 under Tsutae Kumabe. In November 1942 Rear Admiral Raizo Tanaka had flown his flag in her at the night battle off Tassafaronga. A year afterward she was badly damaged by air attack at Rabaul. Under Takuji Mori she was towed from Rabaul to Truk by the cruiser Yubari, then on toward Japan by the cruiser Nagara, and went into the yard at Kure. Mori left the ship on 10 February 1944. The captain’s billet stayed vacant through the rest of the repair, and Tobita took her as that work was ending. She was ready for service again around 20 June.
From 20 June he exercised Naganami in the western Inland Sea. Between 8 and 16 July 1944 she escorted a troop convoy from Kure to Okinawa and continued south to Lingga Roads, the anchorage off Sumatra where the heavy ships of the Combined Fleet were gathering. While he held this command, and before the fleet sailed for Leyte Gulf, he was promoted to commander.
In the Battle of Leyte Gulf, Naganami screened Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita’s First Diversion Attack Force. On 23 October 1944, in the Palawan Passage, American submarines hit the heavy cruisers at the head of that force. The cruiser Maya sank. Naganami rescued men from her and put them aboard the battleship Musashi, then stayed with the damaged cruiser Takao as Takao turned back toward Brunei. Off Palawan that retirement found the American submarine Darter hard aground on a reef, already abandoned by her crew. Tobita sent a boarding party over to examine the empty boat.
Her last voyage was a fast troop run to Ormoc, on the west coast of Leyte, in one of the TA convoys trying to reinforce the army on the island. On 11 November 1944 aircraft of the American fast carrier force caught the ships in Ormoc Bay. Naganami was hit early. An explosion amidships broke her in two, and she sank near 10°50′ North, 124°35′ East, with 156 of her crew dead. Tobita survived. With several dozen of his men he boarded the destroyer Hamanami, still afloat after the same attack. They got her engines started, but there was not enough fresh water for the boilers to steam to Manila. He intended to beach her and fight the hull as a shore battery. The current kept her off the ground. They spent the night aboard, and on 12 November a landing craft from shore took Tobita and the Naganami party onto Leyte. He remained on the navy list as her captain until 5 December 1944.
After he returned to Japan he served as an instructor at the Torpedo School and as a member of its research section. He continued in demobilization duty after the surrender and left that post at his own request in February 1947. When the Coastal Safety Force was formed he returned to sea service and commanded the fairway-clearance unit at Yokosuka. In the Maritime Self-Defense Force he held the rank of captain, commanded the escort ship Asakaze, and later commanded the 2nd Training Unit. He retired in October 1958.