Ships
- IJN Minegumo Captain by 7 December 1941 · Relieved on 25 January 1943
- IJN Michishio Captain from 25 January 1943
On 25 January 1943 Commander Yasuatsu Suzuki became captain of the Imperial Japanese Navy destroyer Michishio. He relieved Kiyoshi Tomura, who was ordered on to the destroyer Tanikaze, and he came to the ship from command of Minegumo, a sister of the same Asashio class. Michishio had been built at the Fujinagata yard in Osaka and completed in the autumn of 1937. Her name means a tide at the full. When Suzuki was appointed she lay at Truk with her engines dead.
The breakdown was already two months old. On 14 November 1942, during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, near-misses from American aircraft tore up her engineering spaces and left her unable to steam. A tow brought her into the Shortland Islands. Shops at the Shortlands, at Rabaul, and at Truk never got the engines running, and she had been shifted along that chain of anchorages only under tow. She had been badly hurt once before. In the Battle of Badung Strait in February 1942, under Masami Ogura, many of her crew were killed or wounded, and the repairs that followed returned her to duty only in late October 1942, in time for the Guadalcanal damage Suzuki inherited.
A brief acting turn fell inside his tour. From 28 January through 30 January 1943, Lieutenant Tadashi Aizawa carried temporary charge of Michishio, while Suzuki's appointment of 25 January continued. On 25 February Destroyer Division 8 was transferred to Destroyer Squadron 3 of the Eighth Fleet, a paper change that left the crippled ship where she was. The voyage toward a home yard began on 6 March. At 1:30 in the afternoon Michishio left Truk with Hamakaze towing and Urakaze as escort. She reached Saipan at 11:00 on 9 March, remained about six hours, and went on. At 10:00 on 16 March, off Tokyo Bay, Hamakaze cast off the tow and harbor tugs took it. On 17 March Michishio entered Yokosuka and was placed in dock.
The repair was expected to last well into the autumn. On 1 April 1943 Destroyer Division 8 was deactivated, and Michishio was rated a special-duty ship for the length of the yard period. The overhaul gave her a heavier antiaircraft battery, and one after main-gun turret was removed to make room for the new guns. Suzuki left before that work was finished. On 1 May 1943 he was relieved and assigned to the destroyer Wakatsuki, then still under construction. Ordinary command of Michishio then lapsed. Charge of the ship passed among the officers on hand until 15 October 1943, when Noboru Haraguchi was appointed captain. The dockyard work itself ended on 14 November.
Suzuki's months in Michishio were the tow from Truk and the opening weeks of that long stay at Yokosuka. His duty ended while she was still in dock. After she sailed again she spent the next year escorting major warships and convoys. On 25 October 1944, in the Battle of Surigao Strait, she was part of the southern force led by Vice Admiral Shoji Nishimura. A torpedo from the American destroyer McDermut crippled her, and the destroyer Hutchins sank her. Tomoo Tanaka was her captain and survived the loss as a prisoner of war.