Asagumo (朝雲, Morning Cloud) [1] was the fifth 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).

[4] At the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Asagumo was assigned to Destroyer Division 9 (Desdiv 9), and a member of Destroyer Squadron 4 (Desron 4) 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.

[5] In early 1942, Asagumo escorted troop convoys to Lingayen, Tarakan, Balikpapan and Makassar in the Netherlands East Indies.

In the evening of the next day, the Japanese ships made contact with the enemy fleet, prompting Asagumo to close the range for a torpedo attack.

During the 1v1, Electra managed score hits with her 4.7-inch (12 cm) guns that forced Asagumo to temporarily halt for repairs, killing 4 men and injuring 19 others, but Asagumo inflicted far more damage than she received, hitting Electra with shells that destroyed her engine room and her A and X turrets, wrecked her communications, and disabled electrical power.

[7] Returning to Truk later that month, Asagumo escorted aircraft carriers in the Battle of the Eastern Solomons to offer additional AA defence.

The force centered around the battleships Hiei and Kirishima, with an escort of the light cruiser Nagara and eleven destroyers, Asagumo included.

[6][7][9] Asagumo continued on to take part in the bombardment, even after Hiei was sunk by American forces, seeing no action the next day.

[7] During the Battle of the Bismarck Sea of 1–4 March she survived numerous air attacks while rescuing survivors from various sunken vessels.

Asagumo returned to Truk in early January 1944 to escort the battleship Yamato back to Kure Naval Arsenal.

During the Battle of the Philippine Sea in June, she was part of Admiral Ozawa's force, but sent on detached duty to Okinawa owing to fuel problems.