Ships
- IJN Tatsuta Captain from 20 August 1941 · Relieved on 20 July 1942
Captain Yoshifumi Baba of the Imperial Japanese Navy commanded the light cruiser Tatsuta from 20 August 1941 until he was relieved on 20 July 1942. She was a Tenryū-class ship, launched in 1918 and still in front-line service when the Pacific war began. Under Baba she worked with the South Seas forces that used Truk as their main base.
Tatsuta served in Cruiser Division 18 beside the sister ship Tenryū. The division's share of the opening campaign was to escort troop transports and to cover landings on islands wanted as bases. A captain in that billet lived on convoy routes, night approaches to a beach, and the short bombardments that went with putting soldiers ashore.
Wake Island was the first hard test. In December 1941 Tatsuta went forward with Rear Admiral Sadamichi Kajioka's invasion force. On 11 December the defenders' shore batteries and a handful of aircraft broke up the landing. The destroyer Hayate blew up under gunfire, and the destroyer Kisaragi was lost to a bomb, and the ships retired. A stronger force returned with carrier aircraft overhead, and on 23 December troops landed and Wake was taken. Tatsuta lay offshore for that second assault.
In January 1942 Tatsuta moved south for the capture of Rabaul, on New Britain, and Kavieng, on New Ireland. Rabaul's harbor soon became the center of Japanese operations in the Bismarck Archipelago. On 8 March the cruiser covered landings at Lae and Salamaua, on the north coast of New Guinea. Two days later, aircraft from the American carriers Lexington and Yorktown crossed the mountains and struck the transports and escorts in the Huon Gulf. The raid sank and damaged a number of ships. Tatsuta came through it and stayed with the South Seas force.
Baba remained in command through the early summer. On 20 July 1942 he was relieved, after eleven months in which Tatsuta had gone from the repulse and then the capture at Wake to the landings in the Bismarcks and on the New Guinea coast. Matake Yoshimura served with him among the officers of Tatsuta.