Ships
- IJN Chikuma Captain from 7 January 1944
Saiji Norimitsu, a captain in the Imperial Japanese Navy, took command of the heavy cruiser Chikuma on 7 January 1944. She was the second ship of the Tone class, completed in 1939 as a long-range scout cruiser with a large floatplane group, and she had spent the opening years of the Pacific War screening the carrier force. Earlier in the war the same ship had been commanded by Tsutau Araki. Norimitsu came aboard as Chikuma and her sister Tone joined the Seventh Squadron with Kumano and Suzuya.
In February 1944 Chikuma left Japan in company with the carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku and reached Singapore. That spring the Seventh Squadron's cruisers made a raid against Allied shipping in the Indian Ocean, then returned to the fleet's southern bases. Through these months Norimitsu's ship remained a scout and escort for the dwindling carrier force rather than a ship held back in home waters.
In June 1944 Chikuma sailed in Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita's van for the Battle of the Philippine Sea, ahead of Vice Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa's carriers. Her floatplanes went out on search while the fleet tried to strike the American force covering the landings in the Marianas. In the confused air fighting, other ships of the van fired on Japanese aircraft. Norimitsu kept Chikuma's guns silent.
On 23 October 1944 Chikuma left Brunei with Kurita's First Mobile Striking Force for the counterattack that became the Battle of Leyte Gulf. She carried five reconnaissance floatplanes and sent them off to search. She passed the submarine attacks in Palawan Passage and the carrier strikes in the Sibuyan Sea on 24 October without serious damage, while the battleship Musashi was lost. Before the sortie, Norimitsu had told the captain of Tone that the operation would probably end with the ships sunk.
Off Samar on 25 October, Chikuma and Tone closed the escort carriers and destroyers of the American group called Taffy 3 and opened fire. After a torpedo hit dropped Kumano out of the line, Norimitsu briefly directed the Seventh Squadron. Chikuma fired her eight-inch guns into the escort carrier Gambier Bay, which sank under the combined fire of the Japanese column. During the morning an Avenger torpedo struck Chikuma aft, wrecking a propeller and her steering, and she fell out of the chase. Further torpedo attacks through the late morning and early afternoon left her dead in the water with a heavy list. She capsized and sank that afternoon east of Samar, and Norimitsu was killed. The same day he was promoted to rear admiral. The destroyer Nowaki picked up survivors from the water. The next day American cruisers and a destroyer sank Nowaki, and one man of Chikuma's company survived that second loss.