Ships
- IJN Michishio Captain from 15 October 1943
Commander Noboru Haraguchi of the Imperial Japanese Navy took command of the destroyer Michishio on 15 October 1943, coming from the older destroyer Matsukaze. Michishio was an Asashio-class ship, built by Fujinagata in Osaka and completed in 1937. She was in the hands of the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal when he reported, under repair since March of that year.
She already had a hard war behind her. Under Masami Ogura she had screened the first invasion convoys to Malaya and the Philippines. In the night battle off Bali in February 1942, hits in the engine rooms left her disabled in Badung Strait, with heavy loss of life among the crew. After temporary repairs she returned to the fighting in the Solomons. On 14 November 1942, with Kiyoshi Tomura in command, American aircraft damaged her machinery so severely that workshops at Shortland and Rabaul could not restore it. Towing crews brought her on through Truk to Japan. She entered Yokosuka on 17 March 1943 under Yasuatsu Suzuki, who had taken command in January. On 1 April the Navy placed her in special-duty status for the rest of the overhaul. Suzuki left on 1 May, and the captain’s billet stayed vacant until Haraguchi was appointed in October.
The yard restored the engines and altered the gun battery. Workers removed the after superimposed 12.7-centimeter turret and installed triple 25-millimeter antiaircraft mounts, the same shift the destroyer force was making as air attack grew heavier. Haraguchi’s appointment on 15 October put a commanding officer aboard while the last of that work went on. On 1 November Michishio joined Destroyer Division 24, alongside Umikaze and Suzukaze, in Destroyer Squadron 2 of the Second Fleet. Repairs were completed on 14 November. She sailed from Yokosuka on 22 November, reached Kure on 25 November, and on 2 December left the Inland Sea for Truk.
The passages that followed were escort work with major units. Late in December she left Truk with the heavy cruisers Kumano and Suzuya and returned in the first days of January 1944. Around the middle of January she accompanied the battleship Yamato into Kure, arriving about the 16th, and near the end of the month she covered a troop convoy from the Yokosuka area bound for Truk. Haraguchi stayed in command through the spring. At the beginning of May 1944 he was relieved.
Masaaki Hirata took Michishio next and kept her for only a few days before another officer was assigned. The destroyer remained in service into the autumn. On 25 October 1944 she stood into Surigao Strait in Vice Admiral Shoji Nishimura’s Southern Force during the battle for Leyte. American destroyers sank her in that night action. Haraguchi had given up the ship at the beginning of May, months before she made the sortie.