Ships
- IJN Naganami Captain from 30 June 1942
Commander Tsutae Kumabe of the Imperial Japanese Navy took command of the destroyer Naganami on 30 June 1942, the day she was commissioned at Osaka. Fujinagata had laid her down in April 1941 and launched her on 5 March 1942. She was a new ship of the Yūgumo class, and Kumabe was her first commanding officer.
Her opening weeks were spent on local guard duty. On 20 July 1942 she left Yokosuka beside the transport Hakusan Maru and steamed north to Kiska, in the Aleutians. There she put supplies aboard the disabled destroyer Shiranui, then returned to Yokosuka on 4 August. On 31 August she entered Destroyer Division 31, alongside Makinami and Takanami, in Destroyer Squadron 2 of the Second Fleet.
In September Kumabe took her south, escorting the battleships Kongō and Haruna from Kure to Truk and then patrolling north of the Solomons. In the early hours of 14 October she screened those battleships while they shelled Henderson Field on Guadalcanal, and she drove off American motor torpedo boats that tried to close the formation. She stayed with the covering forces through the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands later that month. Early in November she helped escort the cruisers Suzuya and Maya from Truk toward the Shortland Islands. A troop run to Guadalcanal on 7 November brought near misses from American dive bombers. On 14 November, during the naval battle off Guadalcanal, Naganami took some 570 men off the sinking transport Shinano-gawa Maru.
On 16 November 1942 the ship became flagship of Destroyer Squadron 2. Rear Admiral Raizo Tanaka came aboard with his staff. Kumabe remained captain of Naganami while Tanaka directed the squadron. On 30 November she led eight destroyers out of the Shortlands with drums of supplies for the Guadalcanal garrison. Off Tassafaronga an American cruiser force met them, and the Japanese column answered with a heavy torpedo salvo. The cruiser Northampton went down, and Minneapolis, New Orleans, and Pensacola were badly damaged. The destroyer Takanami was lost on the Japanese side. Tanaka then pulled his ships out. Naganami made further drum runs to the island in the days that followed.
She kept working with Destroyer Squadron 2 from Rabaul through 1943. On 11 November carrier aircraft struck the harbor. Bombs left Naganami unable to steam, and Makinami towed her into the anchorage. On 25 November Kumabe turned the ship over to Takuji Mori. The damaged destroyer was later towed to Truk and then to Japan for a long repair. She returned to the fleet in 1944 and took part in the Battle of Leyte Gulf. On 11 November 1944, with Kiyoshi Tobita in command, American carrier planes sank her in Ormoc Bay while she screened troopships bound for Leyte. An explosion broke her in two. One hundred fifty-six of her men were killed, and seventy-two survived.