Matsuji Ijuin

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Matsuji Ijuin
April 21, 1893 – May 24, 1944
Place of birth	Tokyo, Japan
Allegiance	Empire of Japan
Years of service	1915 – 1944
Rank	Vice Admiral
Commands	Imperial Japanese Navy
Battles/wars	World War II oBattle off Horaniu oNaval Battle of Vella Lavella oBattle of Empress Augusta Bay

Matsuji Ijuin (April 21, 1893 – May 24, 1944) was a Japanese admiral and commander of Japanese naval forces at several battles during World War II.

Born in Tokyo, Ijuin entered the Japanese Naval Academy graduating in 1915. Trained in torpedo tactics and early submarine warfare between 1922 and 1924, Ijuin would command several destroyers during the mid 1920s and early 1930s until his appointment as aide-de-camp to Japanese supported Manchurian Emperor Henry Pu-Yi in 1932.

Promoted to Captain in 1938, Ijuin would command several destroyer flotillas until the following year. Seeing no direct action during the early months of World War II, Ijuin would eventually command the battleship Kongō by December 1942. Later, commanding the 3rd Destroyer Squadron based at Rabaul, New Britain during the Solomon Islands campaign, Rear Admiral Ijuin led Japanese naval forces during the battles of Horaniu and Vella Lavella, in which he successfully evacuated the 600 man Japanese garrison from the island while repulsing attacks by American naval forces under Frank R. Walker on October 6-October 7, 1943. Leading screening forces from the cruiser Sendai during the Battle of Empress Augusta Bay on November 2, 1943, Ijuin survived the sinking of the cruiser Sendai and was later rescued, along with a few other survivors, by a Japanese submarine. Ijuin would later be killed in an accident while at Singapore in 1944. He was posthumously promoted to Vice Admiral.^[1]

1 References

[edit] References

[edit] Notes

^ Nishida, Imperial Japanese Navy.

[edit] Books

Hara, Tameichi (1961). Japanese Destroyer Captain. New York & Toronto: Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-27894-1.
Morison, Samuel Eliot. History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol. VI: Breaking the Bismarcks Barrier, 22 July 1942-1 May 1944, Boston, 1950.