World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseKiyono Ichiki was born in Shizuoka prefecture, Japan. He graduated from the Japanese Military Academy in 1916. In 1934, he was promoted to the rank of major and was assigned to China as a battalion commander, and participated in the first year of the Second Sino-Japanese War. After two years as an Army instructor, he was promoted to the rank of colonel and assigned to lead the ground troops deployed with the Midway fleet, but the opportunity of a landing never materialized as the result of the naval disaster. In 1942, he was assigned to the Solomon Islands. He arrived at Guadalcanal with 916 men in a night landing via destroyers, but soon found himself enveloped by American forces near the Tenaru River. Ichiki committed suicide after losing most of his men during the failure to break American lines.

Kiyono Ichiki Timeline