By Harry K. Honda
November 4, 2011

Printer-friendly version

RECENTLY I VIEWED “Killer Subs at Pearl Harbor,” a DVD about the five Japanese mini-submarines, called “tubes” produced at Kure Naval Base in Hiroshima. To remain submerged for a long time, air conditioners were installed for the two-man minisubs, torpedoes were trimmed to fit, and a gyrocompass provided direction while undersea.

By late November 1941, minisubs were transported for Hawaii. Their mission was not to fire until after the air attack. That their orders were personally handed from the Japanese Sixth Fleet admiral only heightened the glory to come.

The DVD mentions each minisub by number that entered Honolulu Harbor, but not No. 3 — it struck a reef miles away from Pearl Harbor and sank. For details, I read Gordon Pranges’ “At Dawn We Slept: the Untold Story of Pearl Harbor” and sat glued to Chapter 58, “This Means War.”  

Aboard the first class sub I-24, Ensign Kazuo Sakamaki peered through the periscope at the lights blinking from Pearl Harbor. His gyrocompass had been out of order and efforts to fix it were fruitless. Nonetheless, Sakamaki’s and his crewman Kiyoshi Inagaki’s enthusiasm were fired, shouting “On to Pearl Harbor.”

The next book, Ulrich Straus’ “The Anguish of Surrender: Japanese POWs of World War II,” (2003, 282pp) focuses on Sakamaki as U.S. prisoner of war no. 1. A graduate of the naval academy at Etajima who had met Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet in October, 1941, minsub crews were told they were about “to engage in an operation offering far greater glory than much more senior officers in the surface navy could hope to win.”

Life at Etajima was rigorous, physically and mentally. It left no room for individual thinking, just the need for absolute obedience to military superiors. He came to believe it was “critical for us to die manfully on the battlefield.”

At age 21, Sakamaki’s mind was set to sink the battleship Pennsylvania with his two torpedoes — but bad luck dogged his mission. When his minisub was launched with a malfunctioning gyrocompass, he never found the entrance to Pearl Harbor.

As the minisub careened undersea, his grim determination to sink the Pennsylvania remained. The minisub eventually hit a reef near Kaneohe and began to sink. Impact split the minisub in two, and threw him into the water. His companion perished.

Ensign Sakamaki swam 500 yards to shore and was arrested at dawn on Dec. 8, 1941, by Sgt, David Akui and Roy Terada, two territorial guards on patrol, who had witnessed the bombing at Pearl Harbor. The damaged minisub was spotted and brought ashore for study. Sakamaki was imprisoned at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin.

In accordance with the Geneva Convention, the U.S. notified Japan that Sakamaki was taken captive. The Japanese navy was in a quandary; death notices were not made public but a prisoner was listed as “attached to Yokosuka Navy Yard”. During his first eight weeks in Hawaii, he was constantly interrogated by Lt. Gero Iwai and Lt. Cmdr. Douglas Wada, two Nisei in the Navy prewar.

The only thing Sakamaki knew was that he was a total failure; his submarine fell into enemy hands and he suffered the ultimate shame of becoming a POW. Unprepared psychologically, he fell into deep depression with thoughts of suicide.

[ SHOW FULL STORY ]

Printer-friendly version