Tanaka Raizo

Tanaka Raizo

Tanaka Raizō ( Japanese 田中 頼 三 ; born April 25, 1892 , Yamaguchi Prefecture ; † July 9, 1969 ) was a Japanese vice admiral in World War II.

Life

In 1913 Tanaka retired from the Naval Academy and was made an ensign in 1914. In 1920 he attended the torpedo school and finally in 1923 he became a torpedo officer on the light cruiser Yura . In 1925 he held the rank of corvette captain and taught at the torpedo school.

From the early thirties he was in command of several destroyers and was appointed master in 1935. In January 1937 he was chief of the second destroyer division and in December of the same year he took command of the light cruiser Jintsu . In 1939 the battleship Kongo was under him .

In 1941 he was raised to the rank of rear admiral and in November took command of the second destroyer squadron with his old ship Jintsū as the flagship. At the beginning of the war in December 1941 he led the landing operations on Mindanao (Philippines) with this squadron and in February of the following year the landing on the island of Timor . In the same month he also took part in the naval battle in the Java Sea , as well as in the naval battle of Midway in June 1942. He was then transferred to the South Pacific. There he took part in the porter battles in the eastern Solomon Islands (August 1942) and the Santa Cruz Islands (October 1942) as well as in the night battles of Guadalcanal in November 1942.

Tanaka conducted nightly supplies to Guadalcanal during the Battle of Guadalcanal ( Tokyo Express ) and also directed the evacuation of Japanese troops from the island. As part of these operations, he and his destroyers won a brilliant victory on November 30, 1942, over an American cruiser association in the night battle of Tassafaronga . On December 12, 1942, on another "Tokyo Express", Tanaka's destroyer was hit by torpedoes from a US PT speedboat near Guadalcanal and Tanaka was wounded.

After the evacuation of Guadalcanals, he criticized the Japanese Admiralty for leading the fighting over the Solomon Islands and was then used in less important posts for the remainder of the war. In October 1944 he was appointed Vice Admiral.

Tanaka Raizō is considered one of the best destroyer leaders in World War II. His particular strength was night fighting, especially in the narrow island waters of the Solomon Islands.

Web links

• Short biography

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus Tanaka is the family name, Raizō the first name.