The Secret Japanese Submarines that America Feared the Most

It was a warm morning as the sun rose over the island of Uliti in the Pacific in late 1944. Revelry was loud aboard the docked USS Mississinewa as sailors hurried to their stations eager to fulfill their duties. The big American tanker had been filled with oil and aviation. fuel, she was prepared to embark on another mission to supply the war efforts against Japan in the Pacific with only a few months of service under her belt. Senua promised a long and fruitful career, but as the sun peeked over the horizon she had an abrupt encounter with Destiny, a massive explosion suddenly split the tanker's hull in half and the sailors did not have a second to react before the Flames reached the fuel tanks and a devastating chain of detonations from Earth hit the ocean, raising a series of terrifying columns of water in just a few minutes.

Mississinewa was swallowed by the sea while there was cause for celebration inside a nearby Japanese submarine. The crew heard the explosions and knew that her torpedoes had hit. They had also proven that her new

secret

weapon was effective and capable of turning the tide of the war. the chaiten the suicide projectile of a man directed by a Japanese operator until the moment of impact when the crew of the submarine reported that five American ships docked in the same port had sunk the Imperial Japanese Navy immediately expanded the Kaiten program however its confidence was misguided total despair foreign times were approaching For the Japanese Empire, despite its steely determination and ambitious efforts to contain the Allies, everything seemed hopeless in 1944.

After the destruction of several Japanese aircraft carriers during the Battle of Midway and the continuing alliteration of its Navy at the hands of the Pacific Fleet in US

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Japan realized that it no longer had the naval capabilities to defend its home islands, to make matters worse, the Allied advance had also deprived them of resources strategic by cutting their supply lines in the Pacific. Japan was exhausted, weakened, and lacked the experienced pilots and military it still possessed. two attributes in an al

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unlimited capacity the conviction to continue fighting and untrained young men willing to give their lives for their emperor determined to do everything in their power to defend their home the Japanese high command organized the Japanese special attack units A task force designed to take both advantages and use them against the enemy, the special strike force would use the numerous young fanatics willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for Japan and send them on suicide attack missions in a desperate effort toward the Japanese Navy. the US, even when Japan did.

Lacking the resources to defend itself, this program produced kamikaze pilots, fukuriu frogmen, suicide ships, and even manned suicide torpedoes. If Japan could destroy enough American ships using as few resources as possible, the nation could buy time to rebuild its once-powerful kamikaze Navy

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. The first suicide craft produced by the Special Attack Force were the Kamikaze aircraft. In just a few months they proved to be useful for taking down large ships while spending few resources. Now the Japanese Navy wanted to take the concept to a different set of applications and Japan's

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powerful ones. The weapon against the US Navy was its pure oxygen torpedoes.

The Type 93 and 95 torpedoes could be mounted on anything from large submarines to small attack ships and were just as likely to shoot down a sizable American warship. Still, torpedoes had a significant disadvantage. ineffective at hitting moving ships and submarines often had to surface to properly line up a shot; However, the Japanese were eventually able to program the torpedoes with the target's approximate position, speed, and direction, which helped make the weapon more accurate during the war. Torpedo failures were extremely common and As American ships began to increase their side armor, Japanese torpedo attacks became increasingly ineffective, inspired by kamikazes.

Japanese engineers began to consider the idea of ​​a human torpedo that could be directed from inside its hull and ensure a hit on the most vulnerable section of an enemy ship. If the plan worked the weapon would be more accurate and more effective at a further distance. long Kaiten there was no time or interest in an extended development cycle for the suicide torpedo the Japanese needed a working solution as soon as possible research on the technology began in February 1944 and Japanese engineers produced a working prototype just four months later. The design was extremely simple, consisting of nothing more than a Type 93 torpedo engine compartment attached to a cylinder where the pilots would control the craft and the warhead would be attached.

After the pilot section was ready to detonate upon impact and the projectiles' pneumatic gyroscope was supplemented with an electronic control system that allowed the pilot to manually steer the payload, in practice the pilot had limited control over the guidance of the torpedoes since the guidance system was cumbersome and rudimentary as such. A periscope was placed in the gadget hull so that the operator could see the target and direct the ship according to its position. Every stage of the Kaiten's creation was dangerous and rushed and units were hastily built with little attention to safety protocols, even The Craft Lieutenant's original designers, Hiroshi karoki and sakiyo nishina, died while personally testing prototypes training The men who volunteered to sacrifice their lives for the empire were usually recruits between the ages of 17 and 28 with no military experience.

Patriotic indoctrination in Japan even resulted in numerous children joining in. The program was intended to be larger, furthermore, when the number of recruits decreased, officials turned a blind eye to the incorporation of many children into their ranks, since young people carrying out a suicide mission for the emperor was an enormous privilege that They often wrote proud letters to their friends and family. Before entering the program that would end their lives, training took place on Oshima Island in the Inland Sea, the site was equipped with cranes, torpedo test pits, launching ramps, and a large shallow bay. for functional tests and firing.

Initial training consisted of operating fast surface craft. only with Periscope and instruments only when a pilot could maneuver a ship with Periscope would he be able to handle kaitins. The kaitens were equipped with a dummy warhead containing telemetry equipment and an emergency air tank that could return the ship to the surface if recruited. Diving too deeply, the exercises began with simple circular runs to and from a fixed reference point at a slower speed, but the training then evolved into faster and more dangerous runs around rocks and through holes in deeper water, as As racing became more dangerous, drivers had to do it continually. surface to monitor their periscope and adjust their heading while also adjusting surge tank levels in accordance with a decrease in oxygen they were using as a catalyst and then, when the trainers were confident in a pilot's abilities, they sent him for training in open waters against such advanced Target ships.

Training was conducted at full attack speed at night or at dusk before graduating from the training program. The pilots had to go through a submarine launch and dangerous open water runs before hitting the target ship. Many students were seriously injured or lost their lives during their tours most of the time. At that time, the cause was the impact at high speeds against the target ships. Combat action logic dictated that being able to manually steer the torpedo would mean that the Kai-10 would deliver much better results than the Japanese Type 93 Long Lance, unfortunately for the increasingly desperate Imperials.

Japanese Navy this was not the case in direct comparisons made by the US. The Type 93 unmanned torpedo far exceeded the effectiveness of the Kaiten, in fact the US only attributed the sinking of three ships to the daring Japanese weapon. the fleet oiler USS Mississinewa on 20 November 1944, a small infantry landing craft, and the destroyer Escort USS Underhill while operating northeast of Capengano on 24 July 1945. In total, the Chaitan attacks claimed the lives of 187 Allied men, however, the risky nature of the kaitens meant that the Japanese lost more men while deploying them than the enemies they were able to eliminate. 106 Kaiten pilots died aboard the suicide ships. 846 sailors were lost when eight Japanese submarines carrying kaitens were destroyed and 156 maintenance and support personnel also perished in action.

The Japanese aggressively expanded the Kaiten program after the sinking of the USS Mississinewa. The crew of the submarine that fired the kaitan at the duck. The American ships wrongly concluded that they had destroyed numerous ships due to the chained explosions and enormous fireballs they witnessed at the site, but they did not know it. that only one kaitan had reached its mark and that the spectacular explosions were due to several tanks detonating being one of the combat debuts of the kaitan, the Imperial Japanese Navy was left with the impression that the man torpedo was formidably effective and they continued to grow .

The initiative produced four different variations, in reality the Kaiten was an ineffective and dangerous ship born of fear and desperation. She was unable to produce positive results for Japan, much less change the course of the war. Thanks for watching my video to learn more. Incredible war stories and the machines that made them possible. Click through and check out our other dark documentary channels. We publish new content regularly, so stay tuned and don't miss anything.