Ships
- IJN Hatsushimo Captain from 11 November 1943 · Relieved on 24 August 1944
Kouji Takigawa was a lieutenant commander in the Imperial Japanese Navy. On 11 November 1943 he became captain of the destroyer Hatsushimo, succeeding Atsuo Iritono. He came to her from the Kamikaze-class destroyer Matsukaze, which he had commanded until the start of that month.
Hatsushimo, fourth ship of the Hatsuharu class, had been in commission since 1934 and was a standing unit of Destroyer Division 21. She had already been through the southern advance and the Aleutian operations before Takigawa embarked. Satoru Kohama had been one of the captains who took her through that earlier fighting. Takigawa’s months in command were spent on escort duty, keeping carriers, oilers, and convoys moving as the fleet’s margin for error grew thinner.
From January 1944 Hatsushimo screened the carriers Unyo, Chitose, Zuiho, and Ryuho. When the American submarine Haddock torpedoed Unyo, the carrier was left able to make only about seven knots, and other submarines stayed after her. Hatsushimo remained with the damaged ship, in company with the destroyer Tamanami, and Unyo was brought in.
In the Battle of the Philippine Sea, fought from 18 to 20 June 1944, Takigawa’s destroyer served with the replenishment group rather than in the carrier striking line. On 20 June American carrier aircraft struck that group. Two oilers were set on fire. The destroyer Uzuki finished one by gunfire, and Yukikaze finished the other with a torpedo. Hatsushimo was one of the escorts in the formation, with Yukikaze, Uzuki, Yunagi, Hibiki, and the old escort Tsuga among the screen, and she came through the attack. The oiler Hayasui, which she had been helping to guard, also survived. The destroyer then returned to Japan.
Based afterward in the western Inland Sea, Hatsushimo went back to convoy escort. Takigawa was relieved on 24 August 1944, and Masazo Sakawa succeeded him in command. The ship’s later sorties, including the Philippines in the autumn of 1944 and the April 1945 run toward Okinawa with the battleship Yamato, were made under Sakawa. On 30 July 1945, at Miyazu near Maizuru, American carrier planes and a mine left Hatsushimo wrecked and aground. That end came almost a year after Takigawa had left the ship.