by Mark Felton
1.
Ensign Kazuo Sakamaki, the only Japanese to survive the midget submarine attack on Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941. He was captured by American forces after swimming to a beach in Oahu the day after the raid, becoming the first Japanese serviceman taken prisoner by the United States in the Second World War.
2.
Kazuo Sakamaki’s midget submarine beached on Oahu Island in Hawaii, 8 December 1941.
3.
A Japanese Type-A midget submarine being recovered from Pearl Harbor by the US Navy
4.
Sakamaki’s midget submarine hastily secured to the beach by the US Army after beaching.
5.
A lifeboat from the Union Oil Company tanker Montebello, sunk by the Japanese submarine I-21 off the coast of California on 23 December 1941. The Japanese skipper had attempted to machine-gun the survivors in the lifeboats, one of the earliest examples of Japanese naval war crimes. Eight Japanese submarines hunted off the United States west coast throughout December, sinking many American tankers and merchant ships close to the shore.
6.
A house wrecked by a Japanese shell in Sydney following a short bombardment by the Japanese submarine I-24 on the night of 8/9 June 1942. Shortly afterwards another Japanese submarine, the I-21, surfaced in front of the town of Newcastle and unleashed a further bombardment using her deck gun.
7.
Commander Harvey Newcomb RN, attached to the Royal Australian Navy and the officer in charge of anti-submarine defences in Sydney Harbour in 1942 when the Japanese launched their midget submarine attack. Newcomb had warned Rear Admiral Muirhead-Gould, the British naval officer in charge of the harbour, that the early warning submarine detection system known as the ‘indicator loop system’ was not being monitored correctly. His warning was proved tragically right when the Japanese raided Sydney Harbour on 31 May 1942 after successfully penetrating the harbour detection system.
8.
Japanese midget submarine A21 under the command of Sub-Lieutenant Keiu Matsuo penetrated Sydney Harbour of the night of 31 May 1942. Severely battered by attacks from Australian patrol boats, the damaged submarine was eventually sunk by depth charges. The A21 was later discovered on the harbour floor, its engines still running. Pictured being recovered after the attack.
9.
HMAS Kattabul, a converted ferry being used as a naval accommodation vessel in Sydney Harbour on 31 May 1942. Struck by a single Japanese torpedo fired from Lieutenant Ban’s midget submarine A, twenty of the Australian and British sailors sleeping aboard her were killed.
10.
Japanese midget submarine A14, which was part of the attack force launched against Sydney Harbour on the night of 31 May 1942. Crewed by Ensign Chuman and Petty officer Onori, the A14 became entangled in anti-torpedo nets after partially penetrating the harbour. Chuman fired detonation charges that killed himself and Omori when Australian harbour patrol vessels came to investigate. The wrecked submarine was later recovered for technical study and public display.
11.
Chief Warrant Officer (Flying) Nobuo Fujita. A former navy test pilot, he was the first man to bomb the continental United States by flying a small reconnaissance aircraft off the Japanese submarine I-25 to attack the forests of Oregon on two occasions in September 1942. Fujita is pictured in flying kit shortly before his first mission to the American west coast.
12.
The Port Orford Lighthouse in Oregon, which Nobuo Fujita used as a navigational beacon when he was catapulted from the deck of the Japanese submarine I-25 in September 1942 to bomb America. The loneliness of this stretch of the US west coast was ideal for the submarine launched air raids the Japanese undertook, to drop incendiary bombs on the dense forests, inland from the coast, in an attempt to spark a major conflagration that would threaten American economic interests, tie down thousands of troops, and threaten local communities.
13.
A Japanese Navy Kawanishi H8K1 four-engine naval flying boat which was nicknamed the ‘Flying Porcupine’ as it was armed with five 20mm cannon and four 7.7mm machine guns. Able to carry one ton of bombs, a pair of these huge aircraft conducted an elaborate second aerial attack of Pearl Harbor in March 1942.
14.
Officers of the huge Japanese aircraft carrier submarine I-400 pose in front of the waterproof hangar that contained three Aichi M6A1 Seiran torpedo bombers designed to launch devastating attacks on the Panama Canal and the American west coast. The end result of Japanese efforts to design and build technology capable of striking directly at the American home front, as Nobuo Fujita had first envisaged in 1942, each I-400 class submarine was over 400 feet long, and was not surpassed in scale until the nuclear submarines of the 1960s. The class could cruise 35,000 miles without refuelling enabling the Japanese Navy to strike virtually anywhere in the world. Fortunately, the Japanese surrender came before these boats and their modern bomber aircraft could be used against the Allies.
15.
The waterproof hanger aboard the 1–400 submarine. With their wings folded up and floats removed, three Aichi Seiran torpedo bombers were stowed inside. A separate magazine below the hanger held aerial torpedoes and bombs for the aircraft. The aircraft were launched by means of catapult built into the submarine’s deck forward of the hanger. On returning to the submarine, the aircraft would land in the sea and then be winched aboard by a huge crane.
16.
Japanese Navy Aichi M6A1 Seiran ‘Storm from the Sky’ torpedo bomber. Capable of nearly 300 miles per hour, and able to carry a maximum bomb load of just over 1,200 pounds, the Seiran had a range of over 650 miles. The I-400 class aircraft carrier submarines could wait far off the enemy coast and launch the Seiran bombers on surprise attacks on enemy shipping, harbour facilities or cities.
The first actual confirmed detection of a midget submarine inside the harbour, and inside the defences, was by pure chance. The Australian Maritime Services maintained waterborne lookouts around the harbour entrance, entrusted to watch the gap and to make sure no one interfered with any of the equipment. Watchmen James Cargill and William Nangle were sitting in a punt when they noticed something unusual between the anti-torpedo nets and the west channel light. Cargill said in a report to Muirhead-Gould, now promoted to the rank of rear-admiral, that, ‘We thought at first it was a fishing launch with no lights and, knowing that that was not allowed, I went in the rowing boat to investigate.’ Cargill rowed up alongside the unidentified craft and ‘found it was a steel construction about 4 or 5 feet above the water, which looked like two large cylinders with iron guards around them.’6 Cargill immediately rowed over to the patrol boat HMAS Yarroma, which was about eighty yards away, and reported what he had seen to the officer commanding. When asked by the officer what he though it was, Cargill replied, ‘I thought it was a submarine or a mine’. Because the naval officer refused to take the Yarroma closer to the object, presumably fearing a magnetic mine, Cargill rowed a naval rating back over to the craft. By now the midget submarine’s hull was partially visible, and the rating had no trouble in immediately identifying what it was.
Lieutenant Chuman onboard the A14 by now realized that his craft was trapped in the Australian nets. Two hours after Cargill had first sighted and reported an object in the nets, at 10.30 p.m., the Yarroma sent the following signal to naval headquarters in Sydney: ‘Object is submarine. Request permission to open fire.’7 Another patrol boat, HMAS Lolita, came up and dropped several depth charges close to the midget that was followed by an infinitely bigger and louder detonation that woke up the entire harbour area. A booming echo ran the length of the harbour, bringing citizens to their windows and out onto the streets where all they could see were several searchlights scanning the waters. Lieutenant Chuman and Petty Officer Omori, realizing that they were trapped in the nets, and determined to avoid the disgrace of capture, had set the submarine’s demolition charge, determined to kill themselves rather than face an ignominious confinement. Death had com
e instantly as the midget had blown itself to pieces. Admiral Muirhead-Gould looked now to the various ships’ captains to begin moving their vessels around the harbour as an immediate anti-submarine strategy. The heavy cruiser USS Chicago, misidentified by Japanese aerial reconnaissance as the British battleship HMS Warspite, and the destroyer USS Perkins began, after a signal at 10.43 p.m., to take anti-submarine precautions.8
Sub-Lieutenant Ban in Midget A had decided upon a clever strategy for entering the harbour unchallenged, in a similar fashion to Sub-Lieutenant Yokoyama on the morning of 7 December 1941 who had placed his midget in the wake of the repair ship USS Antares and trailed her towards the open gate in the anti-submarine net protecting the entrance to Pearl Harbor. Although Ban’s Midget A showed up on the indicator loop system at 9.48 p.m., Ban manoeuvred his submarine behind the Manly ferry that was just coming into the harbour.9 His target was the USS Chicago, although Ban thought the vessel was the British battleship Warspite. Australian Naval headquarters, following the two indicator loop crossings over cable no. 3, had finally begun to take some action. Two corvettes, HMAS Geelong and Whyalla each received signals to move out and investigate. In the meantime, Midget A21 under Lieutenant Matsuo waited at the Harbour Heads while Ban launched his attack.
Neither of the Australian warships detailed to investigate the suspicious indicator loop reports was actually ready for combat. For a start, a majority of the crews from both of the vessels were ashore, on leave. The Whyalla was missing her captain who was on his farm three hours away by car, and the remaining crew was unfamiliar with new 20mm Oerlikon cannon fitted to the vessel. The Geelong could only run on one engine, the other one being under repair, and she had only one officer and five ratings aboard. Lieutenant Harry Tyrrell of the Royal Australian Naval Reserve ordered a Vickers machine gun located aft, manned and loaded. Incredibly, Tyrrell spotted Midget A’s conning tower cutting through the water heading towards Farm Cove, where the heavy cruiser HMAS Canberra was berthed. Tyrrell took an Aldis lamp and trained it on the midget’s conning tower, ordering the Vickers gunner to open fire. The rating held his fire, however, as he believed that a nearby civilian ferry was too close to his line of fire.10 The USS Chicago was moored close to the Canberra. Lookouts aboard the American ship also spotted the midget’s conning tower and turned on their searchlights to assist the gunners who began working the ships secondary armament. The Geelong finally joined in with bursts of Vickers fire, but the midget did not deviate too far from her course, moving towards the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The dockyard motorboat Nestor narrowly avoided colliding with the submarine. Midget A began to submerge as the water was churned by a hail of exploding shells and machine-gun bullets from vessels in the vicinity as they attempted to stop the little submarine from acquiring a target.
Midget A21 under Lieutenant Matsuo entered the harbour unnoticed as all attention, and the shooting, was focused on Ban’s Midget A deep inside the harbour proper. At 10.54 p.m. HMAS Lauriana, an unarmed patrol boat managed to illuminate with her searchlight the unmistakable shape of a small submarine’s conning tower cutting through the still water. Immediately, as the brilliant white beam of the searchlight flashed through Matsuo’s periscope, he ordered Tsuzuku to dive the boat. Although the Lauriana was powerless to attack the Japanese submarine she was able to call up some reinforcements on her radio, and alerted the armed patrol boat HMAS Yandra.11 The Yandra closed up behind the A21 as the midget proceeded down the east channel, the former taking six minutes to entirely close the gap between herself and the submarine until the midget disappeared beneath the forecastle. A hard impact was felt throughout the Yandra, confirming that she had successfully rammed the submarine. Lookouts reported that the submarine appeared to be submerging once the Yandra had sailed on about 100 yards after passing over the submarine’s conning tower. Midget A21 popped back to the surface about 600 yards from the Yandra, but by the time the gun crew had organized themselves it was found to be impossible to depress the gun sufficiently to hit the submarine. The A21 submerged again, followed by six depth charges that rolled off the stern of the Yandra. The underwater detonations of the depth charges, each barrel’s fuse having been set at 100 feet, caused more damage to the Australian vessels than the Japanese midget, which had dived to the bottom of the harbour and was now waiting for the anti-submarine attack to come to an end. On board the Yandra the explosions had caused the steering gear, anti-submarine gear, degaussing gear and telephone communication to aft to all fail. HMAS Lauriana had been lifted clear of the water by the explosions, also causing the vessel some minor damage.
Admiral Muirhead-Gould now issued two orders. Firstly, he ordered that all ferry operations in the harbour should continue, hoping that the assorted vessels movements might assist navy efforts in preventing the midget submarines from finding targets. Busy surface traffic would hopefully keep the midgets submerged, and therefore blind. Secondly, Muirhead-Gould ordered the dockyard and graving dock lights immediately extinguished on the Garden Island naval base, which was lit up like the proverbial Christmas tree, providing the enemy with light to find targets with their periscopes and a useful navigation point.
At 11.25 p.m. the dockyard was plunged suddenly into darkness. At 12.30 a.m. on the morning of 1 June Ban’s midget surfaced close to Bradley’s Head off Garden Island. Ban lined up his vessel as best he could on the now darkened anchorage and ordered Petty Officer Ashibe to fire both torpedoes. The first torpedo ran past the USS Chicago, missing the heavy cruiser and Ban’s primary target by about 300 yards. It then passed beneath the Royal Netherlands Navy submarine K-9 and continued on, eventually ploughing into the harbour wall directly beneath HMAS Kuttabul.12 The Kuttabul was a former ferry being used as a navy accommodation ship, and the detonation of the Japanese torpedo beneath her was catastrophic. The vessel was lifted from the water, almost breaking in two as an enormous fountain of spray and debris plumed into the air over the stricken ship. The detonation smashed windows in surrounding houses, knocked out the lights at naval headquarters, and shook buildings to their foundations. Most of the sailors aboard the Kuttabul were in hammocks, which proved to be almost impossible to get out of as the ship twisted into the air and then sank rapidly into the harbour. Nineteen sailors were killed by the torpedo or drowned in their hammocks, and another seaman died later in hospital. Many others were injured or left in a state of shock from their ordeal. The Dutch submarine K-9 was also badly damaged in the attack, though none of her crew received injuries. Ban’s second torpedo tore past the USS Perkins, just missed the Chicago and then ran onto the foreshore but did not explode.13 Lieutenant Tyrrell from HMAS Geelong was ashore when the Kuttabul was sunk and saw the beached Japanese torpedo as he rushed back to his vessel with new orders, the torpedo’s propellers still running at full speed on the small beach, with a fluid leaking ominously out of the casing.
Many civilians believed that a Japanese invasion of Sydney was underway, the explosion of Ban’s torpedo being so tremendous, and coming after the equally impressive self-destruction of Chuman’s A14 on the nets. The harbour was also ablaze with machine-gun and tracer fire and numerous detonations as Allied naval vessels, from heavy cruisers to small patrol boats, shot up anything resembling a midget submarine. As the morning progressed the navy started to recover from the initial shock of being under attack, and to organize a hunt for the two remaining Japanese midget submarines that were lurking in the harbour somewhere. It would be a hunt to their destruction. HMAS Whyalla was ordered to leave Sydney Harbour and seek out the larger Japanese ‘mother’ submarines that were assumed to be close by awaiting the return of the midgets. An aerial search was also mounted in the hope of locating these submarines and destroying them. Just after 2 a.m. the Chicago and Perkins moved out to sea.14 Less than an hour later as the Chicago was passing the northern tip of South Head a submarine periscope was spotted almost alongside the heavy cruiser. The warship’s guns would not depress sufficiently to engage the submarine, but the sighting was
reported to Admiral Muirhead-Gould. This midget was the A21 under Lieutenant Matsuo that had survived the ramming and depth charge attacks of the Yandra four hours earlier. Due to mechanical failure, neither of the midget’s torpedoes could be fired, so it is surmised that Matsuo attempted to use the A21 as one giant torpedo, and ram his boat into the Chicago in the hope of detonating the torpedoes and killing himself and his crewman in true kamikaze style.
For several hours Australian patrol vessels reported contacts with submarines everywhere, and depth charges were dropped all over the harbour. Midget A21 was eventually sunk by depth charges at 5 a.m. in Taylor Bay by HMAS Yarroma, assisted by HMAS Steady Hour and Sea Mist.15 The midget submarine was later discovered on the harbour floor with its engines still running. Matsuo and Tsuzuku had both shot themselves. Sub-Lieutenant Ban and Midget A were never seen again, and the wreck of the boat has still not been discovered. It is suspected that Ban managed to get clear of the harbour and headed out into the open sea. Perhaps aware that attempting to reach any of the ‘mother’ submarines could have drawn Australian anti-submarine forces down on them it has been surmised than Ban scuttled his boat, killing himself and Petty Officer Ashibe. The bodies of Lieutenants Chuman and Matsuo, and Petty Officers Omori and Tsuzuku, were recovered from Midgets A14 and A21 respectively. Their bodies were taken ashore to a civilian funeral director’s and prepared for cremation. On 9 June cremation of the Japanese sailors was duly conducted at the Eastern Suburbs Crematorium with full military honours. Chief among the dignitaries who attended the funeral service was Rear-Admiral Muirhead-Gould, who was to come under great criticism from the Australian public for granting the enemy such an honour while largely ignoring the deaths of twenty Australian and British sailors from HMAS Kuttabul. In response, Muirhead-Gould replied, ‘…should we not accord full honours to such brave men as these? It must take courage of the very highest order to go out in a thing like that steel coffin [a reference to the Type-A Midget Submarine]’.16 However, the entire affair was to leave a bad taste in the Australian public’s mouth, compounded by the fact that Muirhead-Gould was not even an Australian. In Japan the six dead submariners were immediately elevated to the status of war gods, and the ashes of the cremated men were returned to Tokyo by Australia.
