Minegumo (峯雲, Summit Cloud)[1] was the eighth 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).

At the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Minegumo, under the command of Lieutenant Commander Suzuki Yasuatsu, was assigned to Destroyer Division 8 (Desdiv 8), 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.

During the Battle of the Java Sea, she engaged in an exchange of gunnery with the British destroyer HMS Encounter, and suffered light damage with four crewmen wounded.

After participation in the Battle of Christmas Island on 31 March – 10 April, she escorted the damaged cruiser Naka to Singapore, and returned at the end of the month to the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal for repairs.

[6] On Minegumo, 46 crewmen (including her captain, Lieutenant Commander Yoshitake Uesugi) perished, but 122 survivors later reached Japanese lines, and two were captured by the Americans.