Ships
- IJN Kasumi Captain from 1 March 1945
Lieutenant Commander Shohei Matsumoto of the Imperial Japanese Navy became captain of the destroyer Kasumi on 1 March 1945. The appointment placed a lieutenant commander on the bridge of a ship that had already been through most of the Pacific War, and it lasted only through her final sortie.
Kasumi was an Asashio-class destroyer, laid down at the Uraga Dock Company in December 1936, launched in November 1937, and commissioned in June 1939. A long line of captains had taken her from the China coast into the southern operations and back again. Matsumoto relieved Hiroo Yamana, who had commanded her since late 1942 and had been promoted to commander while still aboard. In February 1945, in the weeks before that relief, Kasumi had escorted the battleships Ise and Hyuga from Singapore to Kure.
On 10 March the Navy placed Kasumi in Destroyer Division 21 with Hatsushimo and Asashimo and assigned her to the Second Fleet. The ships were gathering in the Inland Sea for the operation known as Ten-ichi-go. A small surface force, built around the battleship Yamato and the light cruiser Yahagi, was to sail for Okinawa, where American troops were already ashore, and to press the attack with almost no fuel reserve and no fighter cover.
Kasumi left the anchorage off Tokuyama on the afternoon of 6 April 1945 and took a station on the right side of the ring of escorts around Yamato. Asashimo dropped out with engine trouble and did not remain in the formation. The next day, south of Kyushu, carrier aircraft struck the force in strength. In the early afternoon direct hits and near misses flooded Kasumi's engineering spaces, set her on fire, and left her unable to steam. Seventeen of her men were killed, and many more were wounded.
The destroyer Fuyutsuki came alongside, took off the survivors, and finished the wreck with torpedoes. Kasumi sank that afternoon, about 150 miles southwest of Nagasaki. The Navy removed her from the list on 10 May 1945. Matsumoto's command had begun on 1 March, and the Navy's appointment record still carried him as her captain into the middle of April, after the ship was already gone.