Ships
- IJN Shigure Captain from 1 September 1941
Noboru Seo took command of the Imperial Japanese Navy destroyer Shigure on 1 September 1941, while a lieutenant commander. The ship was a Shiratsuyu-class destroyer, completed at Uraga in 1936 and already at sea with Destroyer Division 27. Her division mates were Shiratsuyu, Ariake, and Yugure, and the division belonged to Destroyer Squadron 1 of the First Fleet. Seo stayed in command through the first year of the Pacific War and was promoted to commander on 1 November 1942.
At the opening of the war in December 1941, Shigure remained in home waters. The division screened battleships and patrolled for submarines while the carrier striking force was away at Hawaii. On 18 December the destroyers left Tokuyama, met the carriers on the return voyage, and escorted them into the anchorage at Hashirajima on 23 December.
The early months of 1942 were spent on escort duty. On 18 January Shigure and Shiratsuyu guarded a convoy from Moji to Formosa and were back at Kure on 4 February. On 17 February the same pair took the light carrier Zuiho from Yokosuka to Davao on Mindanao, then returned to Hashirajima early in March. In April the full division sailed from Sasebo to Mako in the Pescadores, collected the carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku, and brought them into Truk on 25 April.
From Truk, Shigure went south with Vice Admiral Takeo Takagi's force for the move against Port Moresby. On 7 and 8 May 1942 she screened that force in the Battle of the Coral Sea. On 13 May she and Shiratsuyu remained with the heavy cruisers Myoko and Haguro as distant cover for a planned landing at Ocean Island and Nauru. The landing was called off after an American carrier force was reported nearby.
In November 1942 the division was running supplies toward Guadalcanal. A run on 8 November went ahead without Ariake. During the first phase of the naval battle off the island, the rest of the division was at the Russell Islands. Shigure then stood by the crippled battleship Hiei, took off part of the crew, and withdrew north, reaching Truk on 18 November. On 20 November 1942 Seo turned the ship over to Kamesaburo Yamagami.
Seo was later captain of the destroyer Suzutsuki. He was killed in early 1944 when that ship was badly damaged. Shigure continued under later captains, including Shigeru Nishino and Manabu Hagiwara, and was sunk off Kota Bharu on the Malay coast on 24 January 1945 by the American submarine Blackfin.