Ships
- IJN Michishio Captain from 15 August 1942
- IJN Tanikaze Captain from 25 January 1943
Kiyoshi Tomura was a commander in the Imperial Japanese Navy whose commands in 1942 and 1943 put him on destroyers in the South Pacific. Earlier he had captained the destroyers Ikazuchi and Shirayuki, and he was promoted to commander while he held Shirayuki. He was captain of Kasumi when the war began. After Kasumi was heavily damaged and withdrawn for repair, he was ordered to another destroyer that was still in the yards.
On 15 August 1942 Tomura became captain of the Asashio-class destroyer Michishio, following Masami Ogura. Michishio had been badly hit in the Battle of Badung Strait that February, taken in tow, and worked back to Japan. Through the summer she remained under repair as a special-duty ship, and Destroyer Division 8 was held in special reserve because its ships were laid up. His command opened in the dockyard, over the last of that reconstruction.
The ship was ready for the fleet again on 20 October 1942, and Destroyer Division 8 returned to the active list with her. Tomura sailed from Yokosuka on 22 October and reached Rabaul on 30 October, while the fight for Guadalcanal was at its height. On 2, 5, and 8 November Michishio carried troops to the island. He kept the ship through the rest of that season. On 25 January 1943 he left her for Tanikaze, and Yasuatsu Suzuki succeeded him.
The Kagerō-class destroyer Tanikaze was without a captain. Motoi Katsumi had been killed on 15 January 1943, hit by fragments when aircraft bombed the ship close aboard after a supply run to Guadalcanal, and the Navy promoted him posthumously. Tanikaze lay in dock at Rabaul from 16 to 26 January. Tomura took command on 25 January, as the repairs were finishing. On 28 January he put a garrison ashore in the Russell Islands, placed there as Japan prepared to take its remaining troops off Guadalcanal.
In the first days of February Tanikaze joined that evacuation. She lifted men from Guadalcanal on the nights of 1 and 4 February, and on the night of 7 February helped cover the withdrawal of the Russell Islands detachment. She then called at Rabaul and went on to Truk, arriving in mid-February. From Truk, and later from Palau, Tomura spent March and April on convoy work. At the end of March he escorted a convoy from Truk by way of Rabaul to Palau. From 6 to 20 April Tanikaze screened transports to Hansa Bay and Wewak on the north coast of New Guinea and returned to Palau. On 24 April she sailed for Truk.
His time in Tanikaze ended on 25 April 1943, when Shinichiro Maekawa was appointed to relieve him. Tomura was ordered to the battleship Maya as executive officer. He was afterward attached to the 11th Torpedo Squadron and then commanded Destroyer Division 6. After promotion to the rank of captain he served at the Yokosuka Naval District. When the war was over he commanded the minelayer Otomari and, for a time, the aircraft carrier Katsuragi.
Both destroyers were lost later in the war under subsequent captains. Tanikaze was torpedoed and sunk by the American submarine Harder off Tawi-Tawi on 9 June 1944. Michishio went down in the Battle of Surigao Strait on 25 October 1944.