The name means arrow wind. Yakaze was a Minekaze-class destroyer built by Mitsubishi at Nagasaki and completed on 19 July 1920. In 1931 she joined Minekaze, Okikaze and Sawakaze in Destroyer Division 2 to escort Akagi and Hosho for aircrew rescue. During the First Shanghai Incident in 1932 she patrolled the Yangtze. On 11 March 1939 she collided with the submarine I-61.
At Pearl Harbor she was training in the Inland Sea. From 4 April to 5 May 1942 she was at Kure being converted to a target ship. On 20 May she reached Yokosuka and served as a target for bomb and torpedo attacks in Tokyo Bay. On 28 June she reached Ominato and kept working as a target for air attacks. She was removed from the Navy List as a destroyer on 20 July 1942 and re-rated as a wireless target ship.
In July 1945, after the attack on Yokosuka on 18 July, she was damaged and flooded, towed to Nagaura and put in No. 2 dry dock, and sank there for lack of repair crews, according to Wikipedia. She was still bottomed at the surrender and was scrapped in 1947.
Commanding officers, from the combinedfleet.com record: Lieutenant Commander Masao Takahashi, until 27 June 1942; Commander Takeyoshi Dobashi, 27 June 1942 to 10 July 1942; Lieutenant Commander Shigeo Aono, from 10 July 1942.
Sources: Allyn Nevitt's combinedfleet.com Tabular Record of Movement for IJN Yakaze; Wikipedia, Japanese destroyer Yakaze, rewritten here.