Kashi (樫, "Live oak") was one of 18 Matsu-class escort destroyers built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during World War II.

She spent the rest of the war escorting convoys in Japanese waters and was slightly damaged during the American attacks on Kure and the Inland Sea in July.

Designed for ease of production, the Matsu class was smaller, slower and more lightly armed than previous destroyers as the IJN intended them for second-line duties like escorting convoys, releasing the larger ships for missions with the fleet.

The ships carried a total of twenty-five 25-millimeter (1 in) Type 96 anti-aircraft guns in 4 triple and 13 single mounts.

[2][6] Authorized in the late 1942 Modified 5th Naval Armaments Supplement Program,[7] Kashi was laid down on 5 May 1944 by Fujinagata Shipyards at their Osaka facility and launched on 13 August.

Kashi steamed from Manila, the Philippines, to Cam Ranh Bay in occupied French Indochina on 15–16 December[9] to participate in Operation Rei, an attack on the American forces at San Jose on the island of Mindoro.

She was turned over to Allied forces at Kure at the time of the surrender of Japan on 2 September and was stricken from the navy list on 5 October.

After the conclusion of the repatriation mission in 1947, the ship was turned over to the United States on 7 August and scrapped by Kasado KB in Kobe, Japan,[5] beginning on 20 March 1948.