But they're not the only one. There's some extract from a book which says that it was Shirayuki too.
Wikipedia cites D'Albas. Death of a Navy: Japanese Naval Action in World War II so all the English sources consistently say it's Shirayuki, while the Japanese sources consistently say it's Hatsuyuki. (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
so all the English sources consistently say it's Shirayuki, while the Japanese sources consistently say it's Hatsuyuki. (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
Yup, exactly. Not sure which one to believe exactly but for sure the japanese will always put Hatsuyuki as the one who scuttled Murakumo like in this page or the very sad video that I post in the "Historical KanColle" pool.
I'm more inclined to believe the people who actually own the ships during the war. If the Japanese say it's Hatsuyuki, it's Hatsuyuki. Don't tell me the sailors who saved Murakumo's survivors didn't even know the name of their own vessel!
The Americans did misidentified Hatsuyuki as Murakumo during the Battle of Cape Esperance, and there's also Aoba who misidentified American ships as friendly ships. Well, a lot of confusions happen during night battles.
The Fubuki-class destroyers are pretty much identical and the Americans believed that they had damaged Hatsuyuki during the previous fight so they must assumed that the ship Murakumo was with was Shirayuki (Murakumo and Shirayuki both came to assist the retreating ships).
