Tamanami was a destroyer of the Yūgumo class, built for the Imperial Japanese Navy at Fujinagata Shipyards. She was launched on 26 December 1942 and commissioned on 30 April 1943, with Eiji Sakuma as her first captain.
Her first months went to training in Destroyer Division 11, shifting between Kure and Hashirajima while she worked with the First Fleet. On 8 June 1943 she was anchored off Hashirajima when the battleship Mutsu blew up in a magazine explosion and sank in the harbor. Tamanami moved in to help, and she saved none of the men from the battleship.
On 23 June she left Hashirajima to pick up survivors of the transport Sagara Maru, already lost. On the 28th she practiced towing the battleship Nagato and held 12 knots with the tow. Sakuma handed over on 7 July 1943, and Kyuji Aoki became captain that day.
The rest of 1943 was escort work. From 10 to 15 July she covered seaplane tenders on the run from Yokosuka to Truk, then carried troops to Nauru and back to Truk, and took a troop convoy on to Palau before returning. Between 18 and 25 September she sailed with the Combined Fleet on a sweep sent against American carrier raids, and the ships came back without having fought. From 14 to 19 October she brought the carrier Jun'yō to Truk, spent November with heavy cruiser groups, and after further escort passages finished the year at Kure.
Early in 1944 she left Kure on escort duty and reached Yokosuka on 15 February in company with the battleship Musashi. From 22 March to 2 April she guarded troops sailing from Japan toward Saipan, and she was back at Yokosuka on 20 April. From 10 to 16 May she went south with Musashi and several light carriers to Tawi-Tawi. On 15 June Aoki gave up command of the ship, stayed aboard as division flag officer, and Tomiji Chihagi became captain. From 23 to 29 June the destroyer brought the oil tanker Kokuyo Maru down from Okinawa to Singapore.
On 7 July she was still with Kokuyo Maru, bound from Singapore toward Manila, west-southwest of the port. The American submarine Mingo was on patrol there, closed the ships, and was detected. Tamanami dropped depth charges that left the submarine unharmed, then dodged a first spread of torpedoes. About an hour later Mingo attacked again and fired four torpedoes. Three of them hit. Explosions ripped through the destroyer, and she went down very quickly. No one survived. Aoki was killed in her that day.