The Japanese destroyer Shigure had earned herself a reputation among the IJN as being a lucky ship. Unfortunatly her luck ran out on 24 January 1945 when she was torpedoed by the sub USS Blackfin. On three separate incidents the destroyer found herself being the sole survivor of the Task Force it had been assigned to. The first incedent was in Vella Gulf. On a mission with three other destroyers to reinforce troops in Vila, near Kolombangara, in the Solomon Islands. When the Japanese destroyers entered the gulf there were six US destroyers waiting. The US ships launched there torpedoes before firing there guns so as not to give away there position and struck all four Japanese ships. The Shigure was lucky. The torpedo that hit her was a dud, and with the three other destroyers burning and sinking she left the fight with only a damaged rudder. The second incident where the Shigure was the sole survivor was the Battle of Surigao Strait. During this fight she was escorting the battleships of Nishimura’s southern force. During the battle she lost stearing a stopped dead, but the USN force was concentrated on the Japanese battleships and she was able to escape.(1) Having survived these potentaly deadly occasions, She was tasked with escorting the carrier Unryu on a transport mission to Mindoro and Manila in December 1944. Along the way the sub USS Redfish found and sunk the Unryu with two torpedoes. The Shigure stayed behind to trap the sub but the Redfish had made her escape. The next morning her stearing was lost again and she couldn’t finish her mission, and returned to port. The other Two destroyers were sunk by January 7. This event ended the luck of Shigure, and on her very next mission she was finally lost. She was a lucky ship in that she was a survivor, but a curse in the sense that her survival ment the death of many many others.



1. Although the Shigure was not the only survivor of Surigao Straight she was the only survivor of VADM Shoji Nishimura’s Force “C”

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"When war does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." -General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson
"The conqueror is always a lover of peace; he would prefer to take over our country unopposed."-Karl von Clausewitz