Ships
- IJN Harusame Captain from 15 October 1940
Sutezo Tomita was an officer of the Imperial Japanese Navy, a torpedo specialist from Shiga Prefecture who graduated from the naval academy at Etajima in July 1923. He commanded the destroyer Harusame from 15 October 1940 until the spring of 1942, which took in the opening campaigns of the Pacific War from the Philippines to Java. After a series of staff and school appointments he was made commander of the 52nd Minesweeper Unit in May 1945, and he was killed on 15 July 1945, aged 43, when its flagship, Minesweeper No. 24, was sunk by American carrier aircraft in the Tsugaru Strait. He was promoted to rear admiral after death.
The academy class list gives his home as Shiga Prefecture, and a Japanese personnel dictionary gives his birth year as 1901. Neither gives a birth date, a birthplace more precise than the prefecture, or anything about his family or schooling. The dictionary gives his age at death as 43, which, with the year of birth, places his birthday in the second half of 1901, after 15 July.
Tomita was a member of Etajima class 51, which graduated on 14 July 1923, a class of 255. The dictionary ranks him 188th of the 255. On the arithmetic above, he was 21 at graduation.
He was appointed midshipman and served in the Aso and then, from July 1924, in the Yakumo. He was commissioned sub-lieutenant on 1 December 1924 and in April 1925 entered the Navy's torpedo school for its general course. He was a lieutenant (junior grade) from December 1926, served in the Oi from December 1928, and became a lieutenant on 30 November 1929, still in the Oi as a division officer. In December 1930 he began the higher course at the torpedo school.
He then served as torpedo officer in three destroyers in turn. He was torpedo officer of the Minekaze from December 1931, of the Murakumo from November 1934, and of the Shikinami from November 1935. On 1 December 1936 he was made lieutenant commander and given command of Minesweeper No. 6. In July 1938 he held No. 5 as an additional post and then took over No. 4. In December 1938 he went ashore as an instructor at the torpedo school.
He left the school for the Harusame on 15 October 1940. She was a destroyer of the Shiratsuyu class, in Destroyer Division 2 with the Murasame, Yudachi and Samidare, part of Destroyer Squadron 4 of the Second Fleet. A year after he took her, on 15 October 1941, he was promoted commander.
The movement record of the Harusame shows the division steaming to Mako in the Pescadores in late November 1941 and then, in succession, with the Vigan invasion force from 7 December, at Lingayen Gulf on 22 December, with the Tarakan force on 12 January 1942 and the Balikpapan force on 23 January. On 27 February it was with the Eastern Java invasion force when the Battle of the Java Sea was fought. A Japanese history of the ship says that on 1 March, as the landing at Kragan on Java began, the Harusame met three Allied torpedo boats that came to attack the transports, sinking one and wrecking two. The same history credits her with taking part in the operations to secure the Philippines in the following weeks; the movement record places Destroyer Division 2 in Subic Bay from 16 March, assisting in the blockade of Manila and the occupation of Cebu.
Nothing in the sources consulted describes how Tomita himself conducted the ship, how he treated his crew, or what he wrote or said of the campaign. What the sources show is a ship in constant motion through the invasion fleet's operations for five months and a captain in office for all of them. On 25 April 1942 he was relieved by Lieutenant Commander Masao Kamiyama and went to staff duty. The personnel dictionary dates his appointment as a staff officer of the 19th Squadron to 15 May 1942.
The personnel dictionary lists his later appointments. On 14 July 1942 he became a staff officer of the 7th Base Force, and on 31 October 1942 of the 1st Base Force. On 25 September 1943 he went ashore again as an instructor at the Navy's mine school, and on 25 March 1944 he became an instructor at the anti-submarine school. On 1 December 1944 he was also made a member of its research department. The sources give no details of what he taught or studied.
He was promoted captain on 1 May 1945 and on 15 May was appointed commander of the 52nd Minesweeper Unit. The unit, formed in May 1943, was a northern-waters force, and No. 24 was its flagship. In July 1945 she was at Muroran in Hokkaido as the flagship of a sweeping group that included three other numbered vessels, and its commander was the commander of the 52nd Minesweeper Unit. American carrier aircraft attacked the region on 14 July. The ship fought in the harbour that day and, the next morning, sailed out and was attacked again, off Shiokubi Cape at the west entrance to the Tsugaru Strait. She was sunk the same morning. According to the combat report, 150 men were killed, one more died of wounds and three were wounded, and the American aircraft strafed the cutters and men in the water after she sank. Tomita was among the dead.
Nothing consulted records a marriage, children or any later memorial to him, or what became of his remains.