Asakaze Maru was a Japanese cargo ship of 6,517 tons that served the Navy as an auxiliary collier and oiler. The movement record at combinedfleet.com says Osaka Iron Works built her at Innoshima for Todai Kisen, launched her on 10 September 1938 and completed her on 28 November 1938. The Navy requisitioned her on 16 December 1940, and she was registered as an auxiliary collier and oiler on 25 December 1940. She served the Combined Fleet's supply unit, carrying coal and oil from Japan to the southern bases, and she visited Kwajalein in 1941. This is not the destroyer Asakaze.
She reached Kwajalein on 13 November 1943. On 4 December 1943, aircraft from the carriers Yorktown, Lexington and Independence of Task Force 50 attacked Kwajalein and Wotje. Combinedfleet.com lists Asakaze Maru among the ships sunk, with 19 of her crew killed, along with an auxiliary water carrier, an auxiliary subchaser and a small guardboat. The Navy photograph 80-G-205294 shown here shows a ship blowing up in the lagoon that day. Navy records give the date as 4 December 1943. One account puts the bombs on 3 December and says she sank some five hours later. No single aircraft is credited with the kill.
She was already a wreck on the bottom when the landings began on 31 January 1944. She was removed from the Navy List on 15 February 1944. Divers call the wreck K-5 Upright.