Hiroaki Abe (15 March 1889 – 6 February 1949) was a Vice Admiral of the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II.
Biography[]
Hiroaki Abe was born on 15 March 1889 in Yonezawa, Yamagata Prefecture, Japan. Abe graduated from the Imperial Japanese Navy Academy in 1911, and he rose in the ranks during peacetime. At the start of World War II, he was a Rear Admiral in command of Cruiser Division 8, which was involved in the Attack on Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Wake Island in December 1941. His division would also experience action during the Solomon Islands campaign in 1942, fighting at the Battle of the Eastern Solomons and the Battle of Santa Cruz against the US Navy. He lost his flagship Hiei at the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, and he was injured by machine gunfire from USS Laffey (DD-459). Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto relieved him of command after this disaster, and he resigned from the navy in March 1943. He died in 1949 at the age of 59.