Ships
- IJN Hosho Captain from 1 December 1932 · Relieved on 20 October 1933
Teizo Mitsunami was a career officer of the Imperial Japanese Navy whose middle years were spent in naval aviation. Born on 26 April 1889, he entered the Naval Academy with the 37th class and stood thirtieth among 179 graduates. He later passed through the gunnery school and the torpedo school and completed the Naval Staff College. He died on 17 July 1964.
On 15 November 1929 he joined the Naval Staff College as an instructor. On 1 December 1931 he left the classroom for command of the seaplane tender Notoro, a former fleet oiler fitted to operate floatplanes. That year at sea put him in the practical work of launching and recovering aircraft from a ship.
On 1 December 1932 he became captain of Hosho, the navy’s first purpose-built aircraft carrier, relieving Rokuro Horie. He was the eleventh man to command her. The carrier had been commissioned in 1922 under Jiro Toshima and had spent a decade teaching the fleet how to fly from a deck. In 1932, before Mitsunami came aboard, she had also operated off Shanghai. His own tenure was a yard and training interval. From 20 March to 9 June 1933 Hosho lay at the Yokosuka Navy Yard while night-landing signal lights were fitted. She sailed from Sasebo on 29 June. On 20 October 1933 the ship returned to reserve, and Rokukichi Takeda relieved him.
He went next to the Naval Air Arsenal as head of the general affairs department. On 15 November 1934 he returned to sea as captain of the fleet carrier Kaga, then finishing a long rebuild that replaced her stepped flying-off decks with one full-length flight deck. He stayed in Kaga until 1 December 1936, when he was appointed commander of the Yokosuka Naval Air Group, the navy’s main station for aviation training and experiment.
The fighting in China opened his years as a flag officer. On 11 July 1937 he took command of the 12th Combined Air Group, a shore-based naval air command sent into the war. He was promoted rear admiral on 1 December 1937, and on 15 December he moved to command of the 2nd Combined Air Group. Aircraft of these commands flew in the Shanghai and Nanjing campaigns. The bombing of Nanjing, and the 12 December 1937 attack in which Japanese naval aircraft sank the United States river gunboat Panay, later became the subject of a sworn statement he gave to investigators.
On 1 September 1938 he was attached to the Naval General Staff. On 15 November 1939 he became superintendent of shipbuilding and ordnance supervision in the Navy Technical Department, overseeing construction and weapons work ashore. He returned to the General Staff list on 15 September 1940. Placed awaiting orders on 16 December 1940, he was transferred to the reserve on 21 December. The Navy Ministry employed him on temporary duty from 20 September 1941 until 31 May 1942. Recalled on 10 December 1943, he was attached on 20 December to both the Naval General Staff and the Navy Ministry, and he remained in that Tokyo duty until the recall was cancelled on 1 September 1945.