Ships
- IJN Kishinami Captain from 3 December 1943 · In command when she was lost, 4 December 1944
Commander Toshiro Mifune, 三舩俊郎, was an officer of the Imperial Japanese Navy whose last command was the destroyer Kishinami. He was a commander in rank when he became her captain, and he was still in command when the ship went down a year later.
He arrived from the destroyer Umikaze, which he had commanded into the first days of November 1943. On 12 November he was named chief equipping officer for Kishinami, a Yugumo-class destroyer finishing at the Uraga Dock Company after her launch on 19 August 1943. On 3 December 1943, the day the ship was completed, he became her captain. She began with Destroyer Squadron 11 of the First Fleet for working up, and she later served in Destroyer Division 31.
Through the early months of 1944 Kishinami worked with the convoy escorts. On 29 February she was among the destroyers that attacked the American submarine Trout, which was lost in that action. In June, at the Battle of the Philippine Sea, she was assigned to the Van Force, the formation that stayed with the fleet oilers.
In the Battle of Leyte Gulf she sailed with the First Diversion Attack Force. On 23 October 1944, in Palawan Passage, she took off men from the heavy cruiser Atago after that ship was torpedoed, Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita among them. Near misses and strafing on 24 and 25 October left the destroyer lightly damaged. On 28 October she grounded on a reef off Brunei, and the damage cut her best speed to about twelve knots. She was repaired at Singapore in the middle of November.
On 2 December 1944 Kishinami left Manila escorting the tanker Hakko Maru toward Singapore, with the minesweeper Yurishima and Coastal Defense Vessel No. 17. On 4 December, west of Palawan, the American submarine Flasher torpedoed her. She listed, broke where the torpedoes had struck, and sank. Ninety of her crew were killed, Mifune with them. About 150 survivors were picked up by Yurishima and Coastal Defense Vessel No. 17. Ensign Susumu Nagumo, a son of Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, was also among the dead. Kishinami was removed from the navy list on 10 January 1945. Mifune was promoted to captain with effect from 4 December 1944, the day he was lost with his ship.