Ships
- IJN Haruna Captain from 20 August 1941
Tamotsu Takama was born on 25 September 1893. He graduated from the Naval Academy on 19 December 1913, forty-fifth in a class of 118, and began as a midshipman in the armored cruiser Asama. His first command came on 15 November 1929, when he took the destroyer Numakaze.
In December 1931 he was promoted to commander and moved to the destroyer Shiokaze. In August 1932 he joined the staff of the Ominato Guard District. He then led Destroyer Division 1 from November 1934 and Destroyer Division 5 from November 1935. On 1 December 1936 he became a captain and took Destroyer Division 8. After a turn in the First Naval District he received Destroyer Division 41 in February 1938, the minelayer Itsukushima that July, and the light cruiser Naka in December 1938.
From November 1939 he served as chief of staff of the Chinkai Guard District. On 15 November 1940 he assumed command of the heavy cruiser Nachi. On 20 August 1941 he became captain of the fast battleship Haruna, a rebuilt Kongo-class ship of Battleship Division 3.
At the opening of the Pacific War, Haruna and the sister ship Kongo sailed with Vice Admiral Nobutake Kondō’s covering force for the landings in Malaya and Thailand. The ships were at sea from the end of November 1941. On 10 December naval aircraft sank the British battleship Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser Repulse off Malaya while Haruna remained with the invasion force. Through the winter she covered further landings in the Philippines and the Netherlands East Indies.
In the early months of 1942 Haruna joined Vice Admiral Chūichi Nagumo’s carrier striking force for the raid into the Indian Ocean. On 7 March she and Kongo, screened by four destroyers, bombarded Christmas Island. After the ships returned to the Inland Sea, Takama was promoted rear admiral on 1 May 1942 and kept command of Haruna.
Late in May, Haruna and Kirishima went east again with Nagumo’s carriers for the Midway operation, as the second section of Battleship Division 3. Takama, senior to Kirishima’s captain, directed the pair. On 4 June Haruna sent a floatplane to search to the northeast. American dive bombers struck her the next afternoon and caused slight damage. The force then withdrew westward, and Haruna anchored at Hashirajima in mid-June.
On 20 June 1942 Takama left the battleship to command Destroyer Squadron 4. Keishi Ishii succeeded him in Haruna. In later years Nobuei Morishita, Kazue Shigenaga, and Masatake Yoshimura also commanded the ship. With the squadron, Takama passed through the Guadalcanal campaign and was present at the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, and the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. His flagship, the light cruiser Yura, was sunk by American aircraft on 25 October 1942, and he survived.
He took Destroyer Squadron 2 on 20 July 1943 and Destroyer Squadron 11 on 15 December 1943. On 1 July 1945 he joined the Navy General Staff. He was promoted vice admiral on 1 November 1945 and retired on 10 November. Takama died on 10 January 1980.