Ships
- IJN Satsuki Captain from 10 September 1941
Commander Shunsaku Ikeda was an Imperial Japanese Navy officer of the Naval Academy's 54th class. His wartime sea commands ran from the Mutsuki-class destroyer Satsuki, which he took on 10 September 1941, to the Fubuki-class Usugumo in northern waters, and then to the Kagero-class Tanikaze. He died of wounds on 11 June 1944 after Tanikaze was lost in the Sibutu Passage.
He came to Satsuki from the torpedo boat Chidori, which he had commanded since 15 October 1940. Satsuki served in Destroyer Division 22 with Nagatsuki, Fumizuki, and Minazuki, under Destroyer Squadron 5 of the Third Fleet, and she was flagship for the division commander, Commander Shuichi Sugino. In the last days of November 1941 the division left the Terashima Strait for Mako in the Pescadores. In the first days of December it screened the landing at Aparri, and on 22 December it covered the landing in Lingayen Gulf.
Through January and February 1942 the division escorted troop convoys south from Formosa toward Malaya and Cam Ranh Bay. On 27 February Satsuki sailed with the Western Java invasion force. On 10 March Destroyer Squadron 5 was dissolved and the division passed to the Second Southern Expeditionary Fleet. From 10 April the ships worked as escorts under the Southwest Area Fleet. Satsuki reached Sasebo on 9 June 1942. On 10 June Ikeda turned her over to Yoshiro Sugihara and left for his next ship. Later captains of Satsuki were Saburo Kojima, Shiro Koizumi, Tadao Iino, and Tadayoshi Sugiyama.
He assumed command of Usugumo at Maizuru on 20 June 1942. The destroyer had been under repair since a mine explosion off the South China coast on 15 August 1940, and she was the one Combined Fleet warship still unfit for sea when the war opened. Assigned to the Fifth Fleet on 20 July, she moved to Ominato in early August. Over the next year Ikeda's runs lay among Ominato, Paramushiro, Shimushu, Attu, and Kiska. In the autumn of 1942 he escorted the seaplane carrier Kimikawa Maru from Yokosuka out to Kiska. On 26 March 1943, the day of the Battle of the Komandorski Islands, Usugumo was at sea on her own route with the transport Sanko Maru. In April she joined Destroyer Division 9. A July attempt to evacuate Kiska turned back in bad weather. On 29 July the next attempt got ashore, and Usugumo, with the light cruisers Abukuma and Kiso and five other destroyers, brought off 478 men. Ikeda left her on 8 November 1943.
That same day he took Tanikaze at Kure, in Destroyer Division 17. His first passages were escorts for heavy ships: Shokaku between Yokosuka and Truk from late November into mid-December, Yamato from Yokosuka to Truk in the days before Christmas, and the heavy cruisers Kumano and Suzuya on a troop run from Truk to Kavieng at the New Year. In the first week of January 1944 Tanikaze stood by the torpedoed transport Kiyozumi Maru and helped the light cruiser Naka tow the ship back to Truk. He then covered tanker convoys between Truk and Palau. In February he escorted fleet units from Truk to Palau and on toward Lingga, and Tanikaze was on that southern leg when carrier aircraft struck Truk on 17 February. From March to 19 May he guarded convoys through Davao, Tarakan, Balikpapan, and Saipan, and entered Tawi-Tawi with the ships gathering there.
On 9 June 1944 the United States submarine Harder torpedoed Tanikaze in the Sibutu Passage near Tawi-Tawi, about ninety miles southwest of Basilan. One hundred fourteen of the crew were killed. The destroyer Urakaze rescued 126 survivors, Ikeda among them. He died of his wounds on 11 June 1944.