Akikaze embarked about sixty civilians in March 1943, including missionaries, servants, attendants, and three infants, before they were killed aboard the destroyer. Mikawa commanded Eighth Fleet and Vice Admiral Shinto Onishi served as his chief of staff when the massacre occurred. Postwar statements placed responsibility on a junior lieutenant and possibly another staff officer concerned with civilian affairs. A lieutenant was unlikely to order a destroyer captain to murder civilians or arrange an encrypted operational message without senior authorization or countersignature. Mikawa and Onishi denied prior knowledge, while the deaths of other implicated staff officers left investigators without decisive testimony. The surviving evidence therefore cannot prove which admiral ordered or approved the killings, but it leaves command responsibility central to Mikawa's record.
Chapter · 30:17-35:05
The Akikaze massacre and unresolved command responsibility
The killing of roughly sixty civilians aboard Akikaze remains inseparable from questions about what Mikawa and his Eighth Fleet staff ordered, approved, or concealed.