Destroyer Asashio

Asashio was laid down at Sasebo Naval Arsenal on 7 September 1935, launched 16 December 1936, and commissioned 31 August 1937. She was the lead ship of the ten-ship Asashio class — an evolution of the earlier Shiratsuyu class, displacing about 2,000 tons at standard load (roughly 2,400 tons at trial displacement). Armed with six 127mm guns and eight Type 93 Long Lance torpedo tubes, the Asashio class represented the peak of Japanese destroyer design in the late 1930s and influenced all subsequent Japanese destroyer classes. Asashio participated in multiple operations in the Dutch East Indies and New Guinea campaigns. On 2–4 March 1943, she was part of a convoy transporting some 6,900 reinforcement troops to Lae, New Guinea. The convoy was intercepted in the Bismarck Sea by U.S. and Australian aircraft executing a devastating low-level skip-bombing attack. On 3 March 1943, after surviving the first attacks, Asashio was bombed and strafed while rescuing survivors of her crippled sister Arashio and the transport Nojima; she sank about 45 nautical miles southeast of Finschhafen with the loss of nearly all her crew, including the commander of Destroyer Division 8, Captain Yasuo Sato. The Battle of the Bismarck Sea was a decisive Allied victory that effectively ended Japan's ability to reinforce New Guinea by sea.