Pacific ships

IJN · Commander

Hitomi, Toyoji

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TH

Ships

Toyoji Hitomi was a commander in the Imperial Japanese Navy. His commands in the Pacific War were the Fubuki-class destroyer Shirakumo, the new Yugumo-class destroyer Makinami, and, for several months while she lay in dock, the Kagero-class destroyer Shiranui. He became captain of Shirakumo on 15 November 1940. Through the last year of peace she remained the flagship of Destroyer Division 12.

On 20 November 1941 he left Kure with the division and Destroyer Squadron 3 and reached Samah, on Hainan, on the 26th. On 4 December Shirakumo screened transports for the first landings in Malaya, and she was back at Cam Ranh Bay on 11 December. In the night battle of 28 February to 1 March 1942 in Sunda Strait she was among the Japanese ships engaged when the Allied cruisers Houston and Perth were lost. She operated in the Indian Ocean in April and was with the Japanese fleet off Midway in early June.

On 30 June 1942, still captain of Shirakumo, Hitomi was named fitting-out officer for Makinami, then completing at the Maizuru Navy Yard. An engine failure during a trial on 15 July delayed her commissioning. He was relieved of Shirakumo on 18 August 1942, the day Makinami entered service, and he became her first captain. She left Maizuru on 20 August. At the end of the month she joined the newly formed 31st Destroyer Division, under Destroyer Squadron 2, and moved forward to Truk.

That autumn Makinami was committed to the fight for Guadalcanal. In mid-October she took part in a bombardment of Henderson Field, and on 26 October she was at sea for the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands. In November she carried supplies toward Guadalcanal and New Georgia. During the mid-November naval battle she screened a transport group and took many soldiers out of the water. On the night of 30 November the division fought the action off Lunga Point in which the destroyer Takanami was lost.

Makinami was badly damaged during the evacuation of Guadalcanal and reached Maizuru in April 1943 with her machinery in serious condition. Shiranui was already in the same yard on a long repair after a submarine torpedo had destroyed her bow in July 1942, and Hitomi asked that machinery prepared for that ship be used so Makinami could be returned to service sooner. On 20 May 1943 he was also made captain of Shiranui, succeeding Hiroo Yamana, and the same order gave him concurrent command of the damaged destroyer Hatsuharu while he remained captain of Makinami. The extra appointments ended on 10 September 1943. Makinami finished repairs on 15 September.

She then escorted transports between Shanghai, Truk, and Rabaul, and she was back at Truk by the middle of October. On the night of 24–25 November 1943, off Cape St. George, American destroyers intercepted the Japanese force she was steaming with. Makinami was struck by torpedoes and sank before dawn. Hitomi was killed with most of her officers and crew. Fewer than thirty men got clear in a boat and later came ashore southwest of Rabaul. The navy recognized his death on 24 November 1943 and promoted him to captain that day.