Ships
- IJN Chidori Captain from 10 September 1941 · Relieved on 10 July 1942
Lieutenant Shinichi Mori of the Imperial Japanese Navy was captain of the torpedo boat Chidori from 10 September 1941 until 10 July 1942. He was a member of the Naval Academy’s 59th class, and he took the boat as Japan moved from the war in China into the wider Pacific war.
Chidori was the lead boat of a four-boat class laid down under the 1931 program and completed at Maizuru in November 1933. The original design carried too much armament for the hull. In March 1934 the sister boat Tomozuru capsized in heavy weather, and the class was rebuilt with ballast low in the hull, a lower bridge, and a lighter gun and torpedo battery. In that form the boats were steady enough for sea duty, of modest size, and capable of about 28 knots, with 12-centimeter guns, torpedo tubes, and depth charges fitted for escort work. When Mori assumed command, Chidori was already in the 21st Torpedo Boat Division, attached to the 2nd Base Force of the 3rd Fleet.
Under Mori the boat spent the opening months of the Pacific War on invasion escort. In December 1941 Chidori covered the landings in the Batan Islands and the large transport movement into Lingayen Gulf. She then ran convoys on through the Philippines, including the passage toward Davao, and in the first months of 1942 continued with the advance into the Netherlands East Indies, among the operations at Tarakan and Balikpapan and the move toward eastern Java. The division’s other boats, Manazuru, Tomozuru, and Hatsukari, were committed to the same early offensives. The duty was screening transports and guarding convoys as the landings moved south from assembly ports on Taiwan.
On 10 March 1942 Chidori left the 21st Torpedo Boat Division for the 23rd Base Force of the 2nd Southern Expeditionary Fleet. In April that force came under the Southwest Area Fleet, and on 5 May 1942 the boat was ordered to the Osaka Guard District. Mori remained captain through the return toward home waters, where her employment shifted to local escort and guard duty. He was relieved on 10 July 1942.
Chidori continued in escort service for the rest of the war. On 22 December 1944 the American submarine Tilefish torpedoed and sank her about ninety miles west-southwest of Yokosuka. Mori’s command had closed on 10 July 1942, after the southern landings and after the torpedo boat had come under a home-district guard command.