The name means wind in the pines. Matsukaze was a Kamikaze-class destroyer, built at Maizuru Naval Arsenal. She was laid down on 2 December 1922, launched on 30 October 1923 and commissioned on 5 April 1924 as Destroyer No. 7. She received her name on 1 August 1928.
At Pearl Harbor she was in Destroyer Division 5 of Destroyer Squadron 5, and sailed from Mako to screen the Lingayen Gulf landing. In early 1942 she escorted troop convoys from Taiwan to Malaya and French Indochina and took part in the invasion of Java. At the Battle of Sunda Strait on 1 March 1942 she helped Shiokaze sink the Dutch auxiliary minesweeper Endeh. From 10 March 1942 to the end of March 1943 she escorted convoys from Singapore to Penang, Rangoon, French Indochina and Makassar.
In June 1943 she went to Rabaul with the Eighth Fleet and made Tokyo Express runs to Kolombangara and the Vella Lavella evacuation in October. She returned to Rabaul on 9 December 1943 and ran to New Britain through January 1944. At Truk on 17 and 18 February 1944, during Operation Hailstone, near misses and strafing gave her medium damage, and she went home to Yokosuka for repairs. In May she joined Destroyer Division 30 on convoy duty to Saipan.
On 9 June 1944, after leaving Tateyama with a convoy for Saipan, USS Swordfish torpedoed and sank her 70 miles northeast of Chichijima. She was struck from the Navy List on 10 August 1944.
Sources: Allyn Nevitt's combinedfleet.com Tabular Record of Movement for IJN Matsukaze; Wikipedia, Japanese destroyer Matsukaze, rewritten here.