Gunichi Mikawa

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Vice Adm. Gunichi Mikawa Born on August 29, 1888, Gunichi Mikawa graduated from the Japanese Naval Academy in 1910. After serving aboard several ships, he was a student at the Naval Torpedo and Gunnery School during 1913-1914. When Japan entered World War I on the Allied side, Mikawa again went to sea aboard several warships and then attended at the Japanese Naval War College. When Japan sent a delegation to Versailles to sign the treaty that ended World War I, he was a member of the Japanese delegation. It was clear this young officer had a fine naval career ahead of him. His superiors considered him as one of the best, brilliant, and daring combat commanders the Japanese Navy ever produced.

He was the Navigating Officer aboard several ships during the 1920s and taught at the Naval Torpedo School. The newly promoted Commander again had highly advantageous assignments as a member of the Japanese delegation at the London Naval Conference and later as the naval attaché at the Japanese Embassy in Paris. Promoted to the rank of Captain, he returned to Japan for highly visible staff assignments. Mikawa commanded the heavy cruisers Aoba and Chokai and the battleship Kirishima during the 1930s.

He received the coveted promotion to Rear Admiral in late 1936 and began his service as Second Fleet’s chief of staff. Mikawa returned to Tokyo to serve with the Naval General Staff and the Imperial Japanese Navy’s Headquarters in 1937-1939. He returned to sea with consecutive assignments as commander fleet squadrons of cruisers and battleships.

After commanding the Third Battleship Division in the Pearl Harbor attack force, he had various commands. In 1940, he achieved the rank of Vice Admiral and later given the command of the Eighth Fleet at Rabaul. When the Americans invaded Guadalcanal on August 7, he executed his plan to send nearly every ship under his command down the Slot toward Savo Island. On August 9, his ships met an American-Australian fleet near that island at the Battle of Savo Island and inflicted the worst defeat the American Navy had ever suffered. His ships demonstrated daring torpedo tactics that clearly showed the Imperial Japanese Navy was second-to-none fighting a nighttime surface battle.

He continued serving as the Eighth Fleet’s commander into 1943 during the most trying and desperate fighting for which side would ultimately possess Guadalcanal and defend New Guinea. Mikawa returned to Japan to serve on the Naval General Staff and other shore duty during April-September 1943. He commanded the Second South Sea Fleet and Southwestern Area fleet in the Philippines from early 1943 until late 1944. After the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944, Mikawa’s next assignment was in Japan where he served until leaving active duty in May 1945. He died in 1981.