Nagatsuki, a 1315-ton Mutsuki class destroyer built at Tokyo, Japan, was completed as (Destroyer) Number 30 in April 1927. She was renamed Nagatsuki in 1928. In the years before World War II she participated in the normal activities of the Japanese fleet, including the realistic exercises that gave that navy a high degree of readiness for night combat.

On 10 December 1941, a few days after the Pacific War began, Nagatsuki participated in the landings at Aparri, at the northern end of Luzon. Later in the month, she took part in the main invasion of Luzon, at Lingayen, and was lightly damaged by an air attack at that time. During the East Indies Campaign, in the first months of 1942, she was part of the force that put troops ashore in western Java, and in early April assisted the cruiser Naka after that ship had been torpedoed by a U.S. submarine

.In early February 1943 Nagatsuki assisted with the evacuation of Guadalcanal, which brought an end to the long and bitter Guadalcanal campaign. In the war's next phase, the fight for the Central Solomons, she served as a fast transport, bringing troops to threatened Japanese bases. While so employed on the night of 5-6 July 1943, Nagatsuki was lightly damaged by U.S. warship gunfire in the Battle of Kula Gulf. At the close of that action, she ran aground north of Vila. After her forward ammunition blew up when she was bombed on the morning and afternoon of 6 July, Nagatsuki was abandoned where she lay, just off the shore of Kolombangara Island.