Qualla: Japanese destroyer Ariake (1934)

Japanese destroyer Ariake (1934): Introduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Shizuo Fukui, Public domain. She came home to a rescue she could not complete. On the evening of July 27, 1943, the Japanese destroyer *Ariake* had just worked herself off a coral reef near Cape Gloucester, transferred her troops onto another ship, and finished her run to Tuluvu on the New Britain coast. She did not have to go back. Her sister destroyer *Mikazuki*, still grounded on the same reef, could have been scuttled. Her captain, Lieutenant Commander Akifumi Kawahashi, turned *Ariake* around anyway. B-25 Mitchells of the U.S. Army Air Forces caught her the next morning. Seven of her crew died, including Kawahashi.

Image: Shizuo Fukui | Public domain

Japanese destroyer Ariake (1934): Born Crooked

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Shizuo Fukui, Public domain. *Ariake* was the fifth of six *Hatsuharu*-class destroyers, built for the Imperial Japanese Navy under the Circle One Program - *Maru Ichi Keikaku* in Japanese, a naval expansion scheme authorized in 1931. The design brief was contradictory from the start: make the destroyers sma...

Image: Shizuo Fukui | Public domain

Japanese destroyer Ariake (1934): Opening Rounds

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Shizuo Fukui, Public domain. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, *Ariake* was assigned to Destroyer Division 27 of Destroyer Squadron 1, IJN 1st Fleet, based at Hashirajima in Japan's home waters on anti-submarine patrol. In January 1942 she moved south, escorting aircraft carriers t...

Image: Shizuo Fukui | Public domain

Japanese destroyer Ariake (1934): The Tokyo Express

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Shizuo Fukui, Public domain. The second half of 1942 found *Ariake* in the role that would define her war: running the Tokyo Express. That was the American nickname for the high-speed nighttime supply and reinforcement runs the Japanese used to sustain their forces on Guadalcanal and the other Solomon Island...

Image: Shizuo Fukui | Public domain

Japanese destroyer Ariake (1934): Cape Gloucester

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Shizuo Fukui, Public domain. Sasebo's shipyards patched her up through the winter of 1943. By spring she was back escorting convoys between Truk and Rabaul. On July 27, she and *Mikazuki* made a troop transport run to Tuluvu, the Japanese supply base on the north coast of New Britain near Cape Gloucester. Bo...

Image: Shizuo Fukui | Public domain

Japanese destroyer Ariake (1934): Underwater

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Shizuo Fukui, Public domain. The wreck lies off the Cape Gloucester coast, in waters that were fought over again less than five months later when the 1st Marine Division came ashore at the start of Operation Backhander. Five months after that, the Cape Gloucester airfields would be operating RAAF Kittyhawks ...

Image: Shizuo Fukui | Public domain