Ships
- IJN I-19 (I-19) Captain from 15 July 1942 · Lieutenant commander at appointment; commander from 1 November 1942 · In command for the 15 September 1942 attack · Relieved on 27 September 1943
Takakazu Kinashi was born on 7 March 1902 and came from Usuki in Ōita Prefecture. His start was unpromising: in 1920 he graduated from the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy at Etajima last in his class, 255th of 255 cadets in the 51st class. He served his midshipman cruises in Iwate, Tatsuta and Izumo, the last on a long training voyage in 1924–1925 that took him to Hawaii, Mexico, Panama, San Francisco and Vancouver. After artillery and torpedo schools he went to the destroyer Harukaze.
In 1927 he moved to submarines, and that is where he made his name. Through the 1930s he served in I-61, I-54 and I-66, with spells in the gunboat Ataka and the destroyer Fubuki. His first command was Ro-59 from 1938 to 1940, followed by I-3 and Ro-34. At the time of Pearl Harbor he commanded I-62 (renumbered I-162), which he took through the Midway operation before moving to I-19 in July 1942.
On 15 September 1942, south of the Solomons, I-19 found the carrier Wasp escorting a convoy carrying the 7th Marines to Guadalcanal. Kinashi slipped through the destroyer screen to about 500 metres and fired a full spread of six torpedoes. Three hit Wasp, and the fires that followed forced her abandonment; she was scuttled by Lansdowne. The other three ran on about 12 nautical miles into the Hornet group, where they struck the battleship North Carolina and the destroyer O'Brien. O'Brien sank several weeks later, and North Carolina was out of action for months. Kinashi was promoted to commander soon after and received a personal audience with Emperor Hirohito.
On 2 May 1943, near Suva in Fiji, he torpedoed the Liberty ship William Williams but, for reasons never explained, left her afloat; she was towed to New Zealand and later served as USS Venus. By the reckoning used on Wikipedia he was the most successful Japanese submarine commander of the war: five merchant ships, a carrier and a destroyer sunk, and a battleship and four merchant ships damaged.
In October 1943 he took over I-29 for a Yanagi run to Europe, one of the rare blockade voyages between Japan and Germany. She left Singapore with rubber, tungsten, tin, zinc, quinine and other goods and, although Allied codebreakers had read her orders, reached Lorient in occupied France on 11 March 1944. Kinashi went to Berlin, where Hitler personally gave him the Iron Cross 2nd class for sinking Wasp. I-29 sailed back on 16 April with 18 passengers, Enigma machines, radar parts, a Walter rocket engine and plans for the Me 163 and Me 262, and arrived at Singapore on 14 July.
She never reached Japan. Codebreaking again gave her away, and on the evening of 26 July 1944, at about 20°N 121°E, the submarine Sawfish of an American wolfpack hit her with three torpedoes. I-29 sank at once; Kinashi and all but one of her crew were lost. He was promoted posthumously two ranks, to rear admiral.
Sources
Wikipedia, "Takakazu Kinashi" (citing Boyd & Yoshida, The Japanese Submarine Force and World War II, and combinedfleet.com; accessed 2 Nov 2026).
Live Pacific Ships page for this officer (I-19, 15 September 1942).