Ships
- IJN Akebono Captain from 16 October 1944 · In command when she was lost, 13 November 1944
Shiro Yoda (余田四郎) was a lieutenant commander in the Imperial Japanese Navy and a graduate of the naval academy’s 64th class. On 16 October 1944 he became captain of the destroyer Akebono, relieving Ietaka Inuzuka. She was a Fubuki-class ship of Destroyer Division 7. Her wartime captains had already included Minoru Nakagawa and Kouhei Hanami. Yoda was the last officer to command her.
He took her while she was moving south with the heavy cruisers Nachi and Ashigara to join Vice Admiral Kiyohide Shima. Through much of 1944 Akebono had patrolled northern waters under the Fifth Fleet. In October she was sent into the surface counterattack against the American landing on Leyte, as part of Shima’s Second Diversion Attack Force.
In the Battle of Leyte Gulf, Akebono screened that force in Surigao Strait on 24 and 25 October 1944. Shima’s column entered the strait after the heavier gun battle had already been fought. At daybreak on the 25th the destroyer closed the crippled heavy cruiser Mogami, brought off about seven hundred of her crew, and scuttled the cruiser with a torpedo. Akebono reached Manila on 26 October and landed the rescued men.
The stay was short. From 1 to 2 November she escorted troop convoy TA No. 2 from Manila to Ormoc, on the Leyte coast, and then returned to Manila Bay. On 5 November, during an American air raid, she tried to stand by Nachi and was caught in the same attack. Hits left her dead in the water and burning, with 24 men killed and three wounded. The destroyer Ushio towed her into the Cavite Navy Yard.
Yoda was still in command when Akebono was lost on 13 November 1944. She was lying alongside the destroyer Akishimo at a Cavite pier when an American air raid struck the yard. Bomb hits set both ships ablaze, and Akebono sank upright in the shallow water near 14°35′ N, 120°55′ E. Forty-eight of her crew were killed and forty-three wounded. Yoda survived. The Navy removed Akebono from the list on 10 January 1945, and he was afterward appointed to command the destroyer Keyaki.