Ships
- IJN Yunagi Captain from 30 September 1940 · Relieved on 15 April 1942
Lieutenant Commander Masao Yamashita was captain of the Imperial Japanese Navy destroyer Yunagi from 30 September 1940 until he was relieved on 15 April 1942. She was a Kamikaze-class destroyer completed in the mid-1920s, and during his command she served with the Fourth Fleet, the South Seas Force gathered at Truk. His tour covered the last year of peace and the first island campaigns of the Pacific War.
In that fleet Yunagi belonged to Destroyer Division 29 with Oite, Hayate, and Asanagi. The division was part of the 6th Destroyer Squadron, which flew its flag in the light cruiser Yubari. Through 1941 the squadron drilled for the work it was about to be given: night passages, gunfire against a shore, and the close escort of transports bound for small islands.
War reached Yunagi at Wake. On 11 December 1941 the squadron closed the atoll to bombard it and cover a landing staged from the Marshalls. Marine coastal guns replied at short range. Hayate blew up and sank under that fire, and Yunagi was struck by a shell and hauled clear of the line. Another destroyer of the attack force, Kisaragi, was lost to aircraft later the same day, and the landing was called off. Wake was taken only on 23 December, in a second attempt backed by carrier aircraft.
In January 1942 the division went south with the force that seized Rabaul and Kavieng, the harbors Japan wanted as bases toward New Guinea and the Solomons. Early in March Yunagi was among the ships that put troops ashore at Lae and Salamaua. The landings on 8 March succeeded. On 10 March aircraft from the American carriers Lexington and Yorktown struck the transports and escorts still lying off those beaches, and Yunagi was damaged in the raid.
Yamashita remained in command through the aftermath of that strike. He was relieved on 15 April 1942. Yunagi was repaired and went back to escort work on the South Pacific routes. An American submarine sank her in August 1944. His command had been the stretch in which this older destroyer of the Fourth Fleet fought the opening actions at Wake and on the north coast of New Guinea.