Arashio (荒潮, Stormy Tide) [1] was the fourth of ten Asashio-class destroyers built for the Imperial Japanese Navy in the mid-1930s under the Circle Two Supplementary Naval Expansion Program (Maru Ni Keikaku).

These light cruiser-sized vessels were designed to take advantage of Japan's lead in torpedo technology, and to accompany the Japanese main striking force and in both day and night attacks against the United States Navy as it advanced across the Pacific Ocean, according to Japanese naval strategic projections.

[4] At the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Arashio, under the command of Lieutenant Commander Hideo Kuboki, was assigned to Destroyer Division 8 (Desdiv 8), and a member of Destroyer Squadron 2 (Desron 2) of the IJN 2nd Fleet, escorting Admiral Nobutake Kondō's Southern Force Main Body out of Mako Guard District as distant cover to the Malaya and Philippines invasion forces in December 1941.

On 8 March, Arashio engaged and sank the Dutch minesweeper Jan van Amstel as it fled the fall of Java, taking the surviving crew prisoner.

She assisted the destroyer Asashio in rescuing survivors from the stricken cruiser Mikuma and, during the attacks on the cruisers, suffered severe damage from United States Navy aircraft on 6 June, with one direct bomb strike killing 37 crewmen, including several survivors from Mikuma, and wounding many more, including Destroyer Division 8 commander Commander Nobuki Ogawa.