Ships
- IJN Nagara Captain from 7 April 1944
Shinichi Kondo was a captain in the Imperial Japanese Navy. On 7 April 1944 he took command of the light cruiser Nagara, relieving Masayuki Kitamura, who had commanded the ship since 16 August 1943.
Nagara was the name ship of a class of light cruisers of about 5,500 tons. She was laid down at Sasebo in September 1920, launched in April 1921, and commissioned in April 1922. In the Pacific War she spent long stretches as a destroyer-squadron flagship, including the Midway operation in June 1942 and later service in the Solomon Islands. One of her wartime captains was Toshio Naoi, appointed on 10 September 1941. By the spring of 1944 she was twenty-two years old and still used as a flagship and escort in waters close to Japan.
Kondo's appointment was a short one. On 8 May 1944 command passed to Giichiro Nakahara. On 15 May Nagara became flagship of the 11th Destroyer Flotilla, a duty last held by the light cruiser Tatsuta, and she remained in home waters. She trained newly commissioned destroyers and escorted convoys, going out to the Ogasawara Islands in June and toward Okinawa in July. At Yokosuka early in July her battery of 25-millimeter anti-aircraft guns was increased and a Type 22 surface-search radar was fitted.
Her last passage came in the first week of August, under Nakahara. She left Naha on 5 August with civilians being moved off Okinawa, reached Kagoshima the next day, and landed them. On 7 August, bound from Kagoshima for Sasebo, she was found west of the Amakusa Islands by the American submarine Croaker. The submarine fired four torpedoes. One hit Nagara aft on the starboard side, and the cruiser sank by the stern. Of her company, 348 were killed, Nakahara among them, and 237 were rescued. The Navy removed Nagara from the list on 10 October 1944. Nakahara, who had relieved Kondo on 8 May, was the captain who went down with the ship.