Kiyonami was a destroyer of the Imperial Japanese Navy, one of the Yugumo class. That class followed the Kagero type, with modest changes so the ships could better meet aircraft, and a full company was 228 officers and sailors. Uraga Dock Company built her. She was launched on 17 August 1942 and commissioned on 25 January 1943.
Tokiyoshi Arima became her captain on commissioning day and was still in command on 20 July 1943, when she was lost. She joined the 31st Destroyer Division with Naganami and Makinami. In March 1943 she took the auxiliary cruisers Bangkok Maru and Saigon Maru out of Yokosuka toward ports in occupied territory. The months after that passage were spent screening convoys.
On 20 July 1943 she was carrying troops toward Kolombangara. United States Army B-25 bombers struck while she was recovering men from the destroyer Yugure. The air attack sank her about forty-two miles, or sixty-eight kilometers, north-northwest of Kolombangara, near 7°13′ south, 156°45′ east. She went down by the stern.
Some sixty of her sailors got clear of the ship. Days passed before rescuers reached them, and those rescuers saved a single man, the only one left from the 241 aboard Kiyonami. All 228 men of Yugure’s crew died in the same attack.