Ships
- IJN Ushio Flag, 7 December 1941
Captain Konishi commanded Destroyer Division 7 of the Imperial Japanese Navy at the opening of the Pacific War. The record gives him no other name. On 7 December 1941 his flag was in Ushio, the division flagship, and the other ships of the division were Sazanami and Akebono. Yoshitake Uesugi was captain of Ushio. Konishi came aboard with the division staff and directed the division from the flagship.
The division served with the First Air Fleet. The carriers of that fleet went to Pearl Harbor. Sazanami and Ushio had a separate task: they were the ships sent to shell Midway. They were not with the striking force. Akebono was the third ship of the division Konishi commanded, and she was not one of the two destroyers sent against the atoll.
Sazanami and Ushio left Tateyama in the last days of November 1941 and made the long run east on their own. On the morning of 7 December 1941, while the carriers were at Pearl Harbor, the two destroyers opened fire on Midway. Sazanami fired 193 rounds. Four men were killed on Sand Island. Both ships were still in company, and still able to steam, when the firing ended.
Then the two destroyers went home. They crossed back over the Pacific, and Ushio reached Saeki on 21 December with Konishi's flag still in her. The ships came home undamaged. What they had done was a single morning of gunfire against the island, carried out on the same date as the carrier attack and closed when the destroyers turned west.
That morning is the command attached to his name. He was the commander of Destroyer Division 7, with his flag in Ushio, and with Sazanami and Akebono the other ships of the division. Sazanami and Ushio shelled Midway apart from the striking force, Sazanami expended 193 rounds, four men were killed on Sand Island, and the two destroyers then went home. The captain of the flagship was Yoshitake Uesugi; Konishi's post was the division, and his place was the flag in Ushio.