Pacific ships

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Umikaze

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ClassShiratsuyu class
TypeDestroyer (DD)
BuilderMaizuru Naval Arsenal
Launched1936-11-27
Commissioned1937-05-31
FateSunk. Torpedoed by Guardfish on 1 February 1944 off the southern entrance of Truk, escorting a convoy from Saipan. She sank slowly, so 215 survivors escaped, and 50 of her crew were lost.
Armament (class)Two twin mounts and one single mount, with two funnels.

Laid down, displacement, length, beam, draft, speed, and complement are not stored for each hull, so this table leaves them out.

The armament line is the class drawing, not a measurement of this hull.

Umikaze
Umikaze training her 5-inch guns on sea trials shortly before commissioning, May 1937. Imperial Japanese Navy photograph, from the Imperial Japanese Navy Photograph Archive, as credited on Wikimedia Commons. Wikimedia Commons File:Umikaze-top.jpg. Public domain.

This is the Umikaze of 1936, a Shiratsuyu-class destroyer, not the older ship of that name that appears in the Wikimedia Commons files. Maizuru Naval Arsenal laid her down on 4 May 1935, launched her on 27 November 1936 and commissioned her on 31 May 1937. The name means sea wind.

At Pearl Harbor she was in Destroyer Division 24 of Destroyer Squadron 4 with Yamakaze, Kawakaze and Suzukaze, and sailed from Palau for the Legaspi and Lamon Bay landings. From January 1942 she worked in the Netherlands East Indies at Tarakan, Balikpapan and Makassar and the eastern Java invasion. She was on convoy duty and missed the Battle of the Java Sea. At Midway she was in the Aleutians Guard Force under Admiral Shiro Takasu.

In August 1942 she escorted the carrier Chitose to Truk and went on to Guadalcanal, where she made eleven Tokyo Express runs through September. On 24 September a near miss from American aircraft killed eight of her crew. In October she took part in two bombardments of Henderson Field, and on 26 October she was part of Kondo's force at the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands. She made another run on 7 November and was in the First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal on 12 and 13 November 1942. She was heavily damaged by B-17 bombs on a run to Buna and was towed back to Rabaul by Asashio.

She was repaired at Sasebo by 5 January 1943 and returned to duty in February. She escorted Musashi from Truk to Yokosuka in May, and she led a transport mission to Ponape and Nauru. Her X turret was removed in November and replaced with extra 25 mm guns. On 1 February 1944 USS Guardfish torpedoed her while she was escorting a convoy from Saipan to Truk. She sank slowly and 215 men survived. She was removed from the Navy List on 31 March 1944.

Sources: Allyn Nevitt's combinedfleet.com Tabular Record of Movement for IJN Umikaze; Wikipedia, Japanese destroyer Umikaze, rewritten here.

The pictures on this page are the originals.