Ships
- IJN Myoko Captain from 15 January 1945
Sutejiro Onoda, a captain in the Imperial Japanese Navy, assumed command of the heavy cruiser Myoko on 15 January 1945. The appointment was concurrent. The ship he took over lay at Singapore with her stern destroyed, her attempt to reach a home dockyard already over, and her remaining work that of a harbor battery.
Myoko was the lead ship of four heavy cruisers laid down at Yokosuka under the building program of the 1920s. She entered service in the summer of 1929, named for Mount Myoko in Niigata Prefecture, with ten 20-centimeter guns in five twin turrets and a large torpedo armament. In the opening campaigns of the Pacific War she served with the southern forces and with the carrier groups.
In the spring of 1942 Vice Admiral Takeo Takagi flew his flag in Myoko while he directed the striking force built around the carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku, with the heavy cruiser Haguro in company. Teijiro Yamazumi was her captain through that season. Teruhiko Miyoshi succeeded him in May 1942, and Katsuhei Nakamura commanded her through most of 1943. Itsu Ishihara took the ship in December 1943 and still had her when the fleet went into the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
On 24 October 1944, in the Sibuyan Sea, a torpedo from American carrier aircraft hit Myoko aft and disabled part of her propulsion. Ishihara brought her out of the battle and south to Singapore for temporary repair. In December she sailed again, bound for Japan and a full dockyard. On 13 December the submarine Bergall torpedoed her and blew off the stern. The destroyer Ushio towed her back to Singapore, where she arrived before the end of the month. The yards there left the damage unrestored, and in January 1945 she was attached to the First Southern Expeditionary Fleet as a floating anti-aircraft ship.
Onoda relieved Ishihara on 15 January, in the weeks after that tow came in. His command of Myoko ran into the early spring. On 22 March 1945 Hokao Kagayama became captain. Myoko remained at Singapore through the surrender in August 1945. In July 1946 the British took her into the Strait of Malacca and scuttled her.