7 Jan 1901: Born in to a farmer's family in Higashiokitama District, Yamagata.

1920: Enrolled into the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy in 1920.

1923: Graduated from the Academy and served as a trainee aboard the Izumo-class armored cruiser Iwate, following it far south to the waters of Australia and NZ, etc. Was assigned to Yuubari after completing his training.

Oct 1924: Assigned to Nagato

Dec 1924: Promoted to 2nd lieutenant. Enrolled into the IJN's torpedo and gunnery schools.

1926: Promoted to 1st lieutenant in 1926 and was assigned to the No.2 minesweeper.

1927: Served on DD Tsubaki (Navigating Officer)

1929: Served on DD Hatakaze (Navigating Officer)

1930: Assigned to Tama in 1930. Enrolled for advanced courses in the torpedo academy

1932: Graduation from the torpedo school. Then on until 1927, served on DD Momo, Choukai, DD Sagiri, Kuma, Tama again and Isuzu as torpedo officer except for Choukai, where he served as section commander.

1937: Promoted to Major.

1938: Became captain of DD Tachikaze.

1940: Assigned to shore duty, served as an instructor in the gunnery school and judge advocate in the military court in Yokosuka Naval Base.

Nov 1940: Assigned as captain of Ikazuchi.

Wikipedia's (rather stubby) entry on Kudou: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shunsaku_Kud%C5%8D

According to the Japanese and Chinese entries, Ikazuchi, along with Inazuma, had also saved 376 men from HMS Exeter on the previous day.

Kudou later became Hibiki's CO in Aug 1942 before assigned to shore duties once more from Dec 1942 onward. Due to health reasons, he was placed on standby w.e.f. 15 March 1945.

He returned to his hometown after the war, later moving to Kawaguchi, Saitama to help out at the hospital run by his wife's nephew. He would stay there until his death in 1979 due to stomach cancer. Kudou seldom talked about his experiences during the war, a self-imposed ban after Ikazuchi sank with all hands in 1944. Even his descendants didn't know about his humanitarian deeds until learning about it from Sir Sam Falle.

On his deathbed, he was visited by Ooi Atsushi, his old classmate from the Academy. Kudou's dying words to him were, "Please live on well. I'm just a big useless fellow (貴様はよろしくやっているみたいだな。俺は独活の大木だったよ)".

According to what I've found on the Internet, compared to the conservative and stubborn Hiraga, Fujimoto was more receptive of new ideas and eagerly researched, experimented and incorporated the latest technology, such as electric welding and ship-mounted diesel engines, into his designs. Also, unlike Hiraga, his designs placed less emphasis on ship-to-ship combat and took ASW and AA into consideration. The Fubuki-class DDs that had shocked the world was his masterpiece; other works that bear his mark includes the Hatsuharu-class DDs and Takao-class and Mogami-class CAs.

Despite his talent, Fujimoto was not without faults. An easy-going man, he lacked Hiraga's force of character and was thus unable to reject the unreasonable demands placed on by the IJN higher-ups. An example was shown in the development of the Myoukou-class CAs, which were designed by Hiraga. Hiraga had previously argued against the installation of torpedoes on the Furutaka-class, reasoning that torpedoes had no business on a ship that relied on its main guns and would instead be a fatal liability should they explode on-deck (later developments in the war would prove him right). Though the navy over-rode his concerns on the Furutaka-class, he eventually succeeded in getting it to approve his torpedo-less design for the upcoming Myoukou-class. However, during their construction, Hiraga was sent to Europe for eight months and his successor, Fujimoto, was pressured by the navy to add in the torpedoes along with other changes to Hiraga's original design.

As a result of Fujimoto's compliant attitude, his final designs ended up top-heavy due to the amount of weaponry forced onto them (anime watchers, this is where Fubuki's initial lack of balance came from). His use of electric welding was also questionable at that time since the technology was still new in Japan and subsequently produced ships that were held together far too weakly compared to the more traditional use of rivets. This preference may have been from either an over-enthusiasm for new technology (which might have blinded him to its problems) and/or an attempt to create well-armed ships with tonnage that would still fall within the limit set by the treaties. In any case this created ships that would come apart in a heavy storm, as was what happened.

As a result of the aforementioned, Fujimoto was held responsible for the Tomozuru Incident and was placed under house arrest. A year later in 1935, he passed away with intracranial hemorrhage at the age of 46. As a protest, his supporters at IJN Technical Department held a grand naval funeral at the Aoyama Cemetary and, on the pretext of "doing spring cleaning", burnt much of the IJN's shipbuilding data and models since the Meiji era, leaving little for the returning Hiraga.

Regarding Fujimoto, a historian once said that the progress in IJN naval architecture stopped after Fujimoto died. There are even some who would go as far as to say that it regressed under Hiraga's watch. Personally I feel that neither nor Fujimoto should be solely blamed for the defects in IJN ship architecture. Instead, the real factors imho are Japan's, or rather its military's over-reaching ambitions which led to unrealistic demands on hardware; a battleship-centric policy that opt for a quick resolution instead of a sustainable long-term strategy; and behind all this, Japan's inferiority in financial and industrial strength, especially when compared to the US. To quote "On Seas Contested: The Seven Great Navies of the Second World War":It's very hard for the engineers to work miracles in such unfavorable conditions.

That said, even if Japan had the financial and industrial capacity to meet the US, its chief imaginary enemy, straight-on, Hiraga's conservative approach was still an issue. Hiraga, like many in the IJN, he too embraced the "Big Ship, Big Guns" concept that was central to the battleship-centric strategy and failed to foresee the increasingly important role that submarines and aircraft carriers would come to play. His designs were thus unable to cope with the increasing need for ASW and AA combat, something that Fujimoto might have been averted to some degree had he been given the freedom to do as he wished.

Hiraga's skeptical attitude towards new shipbuilding techniques meant that he was also stuck with faults that came with tried-and-proven methods. For example, rather than to improve on the welding technique, he continued the use of rivets, which, while a sure method to hold the ships together, would also cause the ships to take additional damage when shelled. His mistrust in diesel engines and over-reliance on the "good old ways" also resulted in wasteful designs instead of streamlined ones that would have worked just as well. And what's worse is that he paid little attention to damage control (yet an area that Fujimoto had gone into). We all know what that led to...