Ushio was a Fubuki, a Special Type destroyer, built at Uraga. She was laid down on 24 December 1929, launched on 17 November 1930, and commissioned on 14 November 1931. The name is the tide. She was flagship of Destroyer Division 7 under Captain Konishi, with Sazanami and Akebono. Of that class, she was the one still afloat at the end.
On 7 December 1941 she and Sazanami were the ships sent to shell Midway while the carriers were at Pearl Harbor. She was not in that striking force. She fired on Sand Island and went home. Sazanami fired 193 rounds that morning. Four men died on the island. Then the two destroyers went back to Japan.
She stayed with the carriers. In January she helped take Hiryu and Soryu down to Palau for the strikes on Ambon. On 27 February she was in the Java Sea action. She is not credited with a ship there. The boat that is tied to her name came after that, and the credit is narrower than it is usually drawn. On the night of 1 March the destroyers Amatsukaze and Hatsukaze found the submarine Perch on the surface, north of Surabaya, and depth-charged her until she could not stay down. They did not sink her. On the morning of 3 March, Perch could not dive. Ushio and Sazanami came up. Ushio opened fire. The first 5-inch shell hit the conning tower, and the crew went over the side and scuttled her. All 59 men got off. Ushio took them aboard. Six of them died later as prisoners. The loss is not credited to Sazanami. The gunfire, and the prisoners, were Ushio's.
At Coral Sea she was not the destroyer with Shoho. That was Sazanami, on 7 May. Ushio was with Akebono in the screen of Shokaku and Zuikaku, Admiral Takagi's striking force. On 8 May aircraft wrecked Shokaku's flight deck. Ushio and Yugure were detached and took the damaged carrier out of the battle. Ushio was not hit.
In June she was with Admiral Kakuta's carriers at Dutch Harbor, the Aleutian side of Midway. In August she escorted Yamato and Taiyo during the Eastern Solomons and was not in the air battle. In September she led the Guadalcanal runs into Kamimbo, towing barges of food and ammunition, Sazanami with her on more than one of them, and on the 13th she was one of the destroyers offshore for the Kawaguchi attack. After that she went back to the escort work. Division 7 spent most of the next two years taking escort carriers and fleet carriers between Yokosuka and Truk. Sazanami was sunk out of that work on 14 January 1944. Akebono picked up Sazanami's 89. Ushio was not there.
At Leyte Gulf she was with Admiral Shima's force at Surigao Strait. The force came in after Nishimura's ships had already been destroyed. Nachi collided with Mogami, and Shima turned back. Ushio came out. On 5 November, in Manila Bay, aircraft sank Nachi, and Ushio took survivors off her. On 13 November another raid caught the ships in the harbor. A bomb near-missed Ushio. The starboard engine was finished. Her best speed was 18 knots. Twenty-three men were killed and ten wounded. The same raid sank Akebono at anchor, and Hatsuharu, Okinami, and Akishimo with her. Both of the destroyers she had started the war with were gone. She was not.
She went back to Yokosuka and was not repaired. On 18 July 1945, when carrier aircraft came over the harbor, she fired her anti-aircraft guns in defense of the battleship Nagato. On 15 August she was still there. She surrendered unrepaired. She was struck from the Navy List on 15 September 1945 and broken up on 4 August 1948.