1935 Training Battleship Hiei Captain’s Award Medal/1935年比叡艦長井上成美賞牌

Award plaque that was designed by the famous Japanese sculptor Jitsuzō Hinago (帝展彫刻家, 1892-1945) who also designed 1939 China Incident and 1944 Great East Asia War medals.

Bronze.
Size 75 × 75 mm.
Weight 102 g.

Reverse

艦長賞 - Captain’s Award

皇紀二千五百九十五年 - 1935

比叡艦長 - Battleship Hiei Captain

井上 成美 - Inoue Shigeyoshi


Original case.

艦長牌 - Captain’s Medal

Plaques were manufactured by Satō Shōgo workshop in Tokyo https://asiamedals.info/threads/badges-watch-fobs-and-labels-of-sato-shogo.21716/.

 

Hiei /比叡; named after Mount Hiei/ was a warship of the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War I and World War II. Designed by British naval architect George Thurston, she was the second launched of four Kongō-class battlecruisers, among the most heavily armed ships in any navy when built. Laid down in 1911 at the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal, Hiei was formally commissioned in 1914.​

She patrolled off the Chinese coast on several occasions during World War I, and helped with rescue efforts following the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake.

Starting in 1929, Hiei was converted to a gunnery training ship to avoid being scrapped under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty. She served as Emperor Hirohito's transport in the mid-1930s. After the treaty fell apart in 1937, she underwent a full-scale reconstruction that completely rebuilt her superstructure, upgraded her powerplant, and equipped her with launch catapults for floatplanes. Now fast enough to accompany Japan's growing fleet of aircraft carriers, she was reclassified as a fast battleship. On the eve of the US entry into World War II, she sailed as part of Vice-Admiral Chuichi Nagumo's Combined Fleet, escorting the six carriers that attacked Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941.

As part of the Third Battleship Division, Hiei participated in many of the Imperial Japanese Navy's early actions in 1942, providing support for the invasion of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) as well as the Indian Ocean raid of April 1942. During the Battle of Midway, she sailed in the Invasion Force under Admiral Nobutake Kondō, before being redeployed to the Solomon Islands during the Battle of Guadalcanal. She escorted Japanese carrier forces during the battles of the Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz Islands, before sailing as part of a bombardment force under Admiral Kondō during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. In the early hours of 13 November 1942, Hiei engaged American cruisers and destroyers alongside her sister ship Kirishima. After helping to sink the light cruiser USS Atlanta and the destroyer USS Monssen, damage numerous other warships, and help to kill two Admirals, Hiei was crippled by shell hits from the heavy cruiser USS San Francisco that jammed her rudder. Subjected to a daylight air attack from Henderson Field and the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, she was scuttled on the evening of 13 November 1942.​

 

Shigeyoshi Inoue /井上 成美, Inoue Shigeyoshi; December 9, 1889 – December 15, 1975) was was born on December 9, 1889, in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, the eleventh son of a vineyard owner and former samurai retainer Kanori Inoue. Inoue attended the 37th class of the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy, graduating second out of a class of 179 cadets in 1909. As a midshipman, he was assigned to the cruiser Soya on its 1909 cruise from Dairen to Chemulpo, Chinkai, Sasebo and Tsu. He stayed with Soya on its cruise the following year to Manila, Ambon, Townsville, Brisbane, Sydney, Hobart, Melbourne, Fremantle, Batavia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Makung, and Keelung. On his return, he was assigned to the battleship Mikasa, and then the cruiser Kasuga.

Shortly after his promotion to ensign on December 15, 1910, he was reassigned to the cruiser Kurama and attended the coronation ceremonies for King George V in London in 1911. In 1912, he returned to school to study latest naval artillery and submarine warfare techniques and was promoted to sub-lieutenant at the end of that year. In 1913, he served on the cruiser Takachiho, followed by the battleship Hiei. He was promoted to lieutenant at the end of 1915, and transferred to the battleship Fusō. Although Fusō participated in operations in World War I against the Imperial German Navy, Inoue was not in any combat situations.

At the end of 1918, Inoue was appointed military attaché to Switzerland, and ordered by the Navy to learn German. In 1919, he was part of the Japanese diplomatic delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, where this knowledge proved to be useful. In 1920, he was appointed military attaché to France, and was then ordered to learn French. In December 1921, he received a promotion to lieutenant commander, and was permitted to return to Japan.

After serving as executive officer on the Suma in 1923, Inoue enrolled in the Naval Staff College, graduating 3rd in a class of 21 the following year from the 22nd class. On December 1, 1925, he was promoted to commander. Inoue remained in staff positions for the next several years, including an appointment as naval attaché to Italy from 1927 to 1929, after which he was promoted to captain.

On November 15, 1933, Inoue was given command of Hiei. However, his administrative talents could not be overlooked, and he returned to shore duties after slightly over a year and a half. Inoue was a protégé of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, and was strongly opposed to the Tripartite Pact with Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Inoue was a leader of the "leftist clique" within the Japanese military, which opposed Japan's increasing trend towards fascism and overseas expansionism.

Promoted to rear admiral on November 15, 1935, Inoue was made vice commander of the IJN 3rd Fleet, which covered the China theater of operations in 1939 and further promoted to vice admiral the same year. As with Yamamoto, he was a strong proponent of naval aviation. Inoue was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun 1st class in 1940.

In 1940, Inoue became commander of the Imperial Japanese Navy Aviation Bureau, and submitted his thesis for a radical restructuring of the Imperial Japanese Navy to Naval Minister Koshirō Oikawa early in 1941. He was highly critical of the Navy's shipbuilding programme, with its emphasis on battleships over aircraft carriers. Inoue was given command of the IJN Fourth Fleet later the same year, based out of Truk. He was thus in command of Japanese naval forces during the Battle of Guam and Battle of Wake Island. He subsequently relocated his headquarters to Rabaul for Operation Mo, intended to occupy Port Moresby. However, after the Japanese defeat at the Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942, he was relieved of his command in October, and returned to Japan to become commander of the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy. He became Vice Minister of the Navy in the closing stages of World War II, was promoted to full admiral on May 15, 1945 (one of the last two promotions made to this rank), and officially retired on October 15 of the same year.

After the war, Inoue became an English and music teacher to children at his house in Yokosuka.​