Construction of the large-sized
Minekaze-class destroyers was authorized as part of the Imperial Japanese Navy's
8-4 Fleet Program from fiscal 1917 with nine vessels, and fiscal 1918 with an additional six vessels. However, the final three vessels in the fiscal 1918 were built to a different design and have a different enough silhouette that many authors consider them to be a separate
class.
Numakaze, built at the
Maizuru Naval Arsenal, was the third ship of this sub-class. The destroyer was
laid down on 10 August 1921,
launched on 25 February 1922 and commissioned on 27 July 1922. On completion,
Numakaze was teamed with , and
flagship to form Destroyer Division 1 (第一駆逐艦). In 1938-1939, the Division was assigned to patrols of the northern and central
China coastlines in support of Japanese combat operations in the
Second Sino-Japanese War World War II history At the time of the
attack on Pearl Harbor,
Numakaze was based at the
Ōminato Guard District in northern Japan, and was assigned to patrols of the
Hokkaidō and
Chishima Islands coastlines. During the
Battle of Midway in May 1942,
Numakaze was assigned to the reserve force for the
Aleutian Islands Operation, which did not leave Japanese waters. Afterwards, she returned to patrol and escort duties based out of Ōminato through July 1943, when the ship was assigned temporarily to the
IJN 5th Fleet for the mission to evacuate surviving Japanese forces from
Kiska. On 6 June 1943,
Numakaze suffered damage in a collision with the destroyer .
Numakaze continued to be based at Ōminato for patrol and escort in northern waters until December 1943. In December 1943,
Numakaze was reassigned to the
Combined Fleet, departing from
Moji on 5 December as part of the 1st Surface Escort Division escorting a convoy to
Taiwan. However, on 18 December 1943,
Numakaze, while chasing the wake of the
submarine , was hit by a torpedo, blew up and sank east-northeast of
Naha,
Okinawa at position . The destroyer was lost with all hands, including the commanding officer of DesDiv 1, Commander Watanabe Yasumasa. On 5 February 1944
Numakaze was removed from
navy list. ==Notes==