Ships
- IJN Hiryu Flag, not her captain, Pearl Harbor and Midway
- IJN Soryu Carrier Division 2, not her captain, 7 December 1941
Rear Admiral Tamon Yamaguchi commanded Carrier Division 2 of the Imperial Japanese Navy. His flag was in Hiryu at Pearl Harbor and at Midway. He was not her captain. Soryu was in the division. He was not her captain either.
He had come to that command as a career officer of the fleet. Yamaguchi entered the naval academy in the early years of the century and spent much of his service at sea, in staff billets, and in the diplomatic posts that the navy used to train officers who might one day lead a force. By the late 1930s he was a rear admiral, known among his peers as an aggressive commander who preferred to keep his carriers moving and striking rather than holding them back.
On 7 December 1941, Carrier Division 2 sailed with the force that attacked Pearl Harbor. Hiryu and Soryu launched aircraft against the American base on Oahu. Yamaguchi directed the division from Hiryu. The captain of Hiryu was Tomeo Kaku. The captain of Soryu was Ryusaku Yanagimoto. The two carriers then took part in the early months of the Pacific war, including the strike into the Indian Ocean in the spring of 1942, still under Yamaguchi’s flag.
At Midway in June 1942, Carrier Division 2 again flew Yamaguchi’s flag in Hiryu. After American dive bombers wrecked the other Japanese carriers, Hiryu was the only flight deck left in the striking force. Her aircraft hit Yorktown. American aircraft then found Hiryu and left her burning and unable to operate planes. She was wrecked and scuttled on 5 June. Yamaguchi was lost with her.
He chose to remain aboard rather than transfer to a destroyer with the survivors. Kaku stayed with him. Their deaths ended the last organized carrier command of the Midway striking force and removed one of the navy’s most determined carrier admirals from the war.