Operation Storm: Japan's Top Secret Submarines and Its Plan to Change the Course of World War II (4 page)

As Nambu watched through his binoculars, the American sub acted as if she were in a western quick-draw contest. It didn’t help that Commander Ariizumi stood beside him expressing unhappiness with the situation. Both men had been reluctant to accept the emperor’s surrender announcement when it was broadcast on August 15.
⁴
They’d been overhearing Allied radio programs all week
⁵
indicating that Japan was about to give in. Nambu had dismissed them as propaganda and carried on as if nothing were wrong.
⁶
But it was hard to ignore the
Taikai Rei
, or Imperial Rescript, when it finally arrived. Even though its language was so archaic they had trouble understanding it,
⁷
Nambu threw his hands up in anger when he read “endure the unendurable.” He knew it meant surrender.

“Could they really do something this stupid?” he cried.
⁸

Everyone knew the war was going badly. Nobody expected to return home alive. But what were they supposed to do after five long years of fighting? Surrender to the enemy? What was command thinking?

Squadron Commander Ariizumi was so incensed by the news, he didn’t even finish reading the decree.
⁹
Neither Ariizumi nor Nambu informed the crew that Japan had surrendered.
¹⁰
Instead, they submerged the sub and continued on their deadly mission.

When the
I-401
next surfaced, it was the evening of August 16, and a flood of communiqués deluged the radio room.
¹¹
The orders were so contradictory, it was hard to understand their mission status. Order number 114 confirmed that peace had been declared and a cease-fire was about to be signed.
¹²
But the order also stated: “All submarines shall execute predetermined missions and attack enemy if discovered.”
¹³
Clearly, the
I-401
was being told to complete her mission despite the cease-fire. Subsequent orders suggested otherwise.

Nambu recognized the confusion as the death throes of the empire.
¹⁴
What he didn’t appreciate was just how chaotic things were.
At Kure, Japan’s second-largest sub base, Sixth Fleet junior officers had broken into the armory, commandeered weapons, and requested permission to continue the war.
¹⁵
Meanwhile six Japanese subs intent on attacking the enemy had put out to sea of their own accord.
¹⁶

Things were no better at the Sasebo sub base. One sub captain sent a defiant telegram to Admiral Tadashige Daigo, commander in chief of the Sixth Fleet, proclaiming: “Though defeated in war, Japan will never die. We will fight to defend our country until the last soldier. We depart … today to attack the enemy.”
¹⁷

The Imperial Japanese Navy had never planned on surrender, and since individual initiative wasn’t highly prized, many commanders didn’t know what to do. The situation was unprecedented.

Nambu had been taught that when torn between surrender and death, it’s best to choose death,
¹⁸
yet deep in his heart he wished to return to his family. Though he’d never admit to such feelings, Nambu was as human as the next man. He was also reluctant to surrender. The reason was more than just pride—it was belief in the entire imperial system. To surrender would be shameful; to die for the emperor, glorious.

Such thinking wasn’t unusual for a Sixth Fleet sub captain. But Nambu was different in other ways. Over six feet tall with an erect bearing and a handsome face, Nambu had a full head of hair that he brushed straight back from his forehead. Despite his modest upbringing, he’d demonstrated intellectual acumen at an early age.
¹⁹
His parents had high aspirations for their only son, hoping he’d go into medicine, politics, or the military; the only routes for advancement in a stratified society. But Nambu and his sister were orphaned at an early age, curtailing their options. Fortunately, when it came time to take the naval academy’s famously difficult entrance exam, Nambu’s precocity paid off. He was one of only two boys from his prefecture to be admitted.
^*

What really differentiated the 34-year-old sub captain was his
command philosophy. Nambu took a different approach when it came to his crew, and the results showed. Thoughtful, deliberate, and always in control, he had his men’s welfare at heart, and they trusted him because of it. He didn’t have to command respect, he earned it.

Ariizumi, by contrast, couldn’t have been more different.

Raised in a well-to-do family with a history of naval service, Arizumi had had a comfortable upbringing. Loyalty to the emperor and filial piety were so ingrained in him that he probably had taken it for granted that he’d attend the naval academy.

The commander’s family traced their roots back to samurai, but the difference between Ariizumi and Nambu extended beyond upbringing. Ariizumi had at least ten more years of experience in the Imperial Japanese Navy. He’d not only captained submarines—he was the Naval General Staff’s senior submarine officer when the war began. He’d also planned the midget sub attack against Pearl Harbor and had participated in the development of Yamamoto’s
I-400
subs. In other words, Ariizumi knew his way around the halls of the Navy Ministry, while Nambu was still a line officer. Ariizumi set policy; Nambu carried it out. Though this understates Nambu’s command ability, naval roles left little room for deviation. They may have had their share of disagreements, but Ariizumi was Nambu’s superior officer, period.

Ariizumi’s rank didn’t make him good-looking though. Best described as roly-poly, he had a round, pudgy face, shiny skin, and limp black hair that he parted neatly on the left. When standing side by side, Ariizumi and Nambu looked more like a bowling ball and a tenpin than a superior officer and a subordinate.

The differences weren’t just cosmetic though; they were stylistic as well. Ariizumi was a forbidding autocrat with a reputation for being meticulous and demanding. He also had a temper. Sometimes he even struck his men—not an uncommon practice in the Imperial Japanese Navy. Admirers described him as tough. Detractors called him ruthless. Unsurprisingly, the
I-401
’s crew were intimidated by Ariizumi. Some even feared him.

About the only thing Ariizumi and Nambu had in common, besides their loyalty to the emperor, was their mustaches. Ariizumi preferred his thin and clipped, while Nambu’s was almost luxuriant. The crew so admired Nambu’s mustache, they said it made him look like a movie star.
²⁰
But Nambu wasn’t vain; he was straightforward and predictable. Ariizumi, on the other hand, was volatility personified.

The surrender announcement had shaken both men to the core, especially since neither was the type to give up. And now that an American submarine menaced them, they were faced with an important decision. Nambu was responsible for a top secret, state-of-the-art sub, as well as the lives of its 204 crew. He also had a commanding officer with no intention of allowing a despised enemy to capture his flagship. But Nambu’s thinking had evolved since his first pained acknowledgment of Japan’s surrender. The more he thought about the emperor’s edicts, the more he realized they were being called home to help rebuild the nation. That meant returning his men safely to Japan.

Ariizumi disagreed.

Nambu knew their fate depended on how he managed the commander, but he could not go against his superior officer. Ariizumi was responsible for all the aircraft and submarines in SubRon 1 (Submarine Squadron 1), not just the
I-401
. Since the war’s end, however, SubRon 1 lay sunk or scattered. Additionally, Nambu had purposefully kept the
I-401
’s whereabouts secret, despite repeated calls from Sixth Fleet headquarters to disclose their location.
²¹
Both men were determined to operate on their own terms, and both were desperate to complete their self-appointed missions.

Still, the change in circumstances had muddled the
I-401
’s command structure. The crew only took orders from Nambu, but Ariizumi commanded the squadron. It was possible he might cross the line and begin issuing orders himself, especially if Nambu wouldn’t. Ariizumi’s unpredictability didn’t help matters. If he began telling Nambu’s crew what to do, would they obey him?

Ironically, they’d been only ten hours from their final destination when they crossed paths with the enemy. And they wouldn’t
have stopped if their port engine hadn’t broken down.
²²
But now that they faced an American submarine, all bets were off.

Ariizumi wasn’t ready to surrender, especially outside Japanese waters. Unfortunately, the American sub wasn’t giving him much alternative. As Nambu saw it, they only had three choices: to run, to attack, or to surrender. If they repaired their engine in time, they could try to run, but the American submarine was likely to sink them before they got very far. They could attack the U.S. sub, using the few resources they had left, but Nambu well knew they were at a disadvantage. Finally, they could surrender, but neither Nambu nor Ariizumi wanted the loss of face. It was the perfect doomsday scenario, each option leading to catastrophe.

There was one option, though, that Nambu hadn’t considered—one he’d completely overlooked. Unfortunately, it was the one option that Commander Ariizumi presented to him, and he did so as a fait accompli. They would scuttle the
I-401
with all hands on board. Everyone would die for the emperor.

Ariizumi’s decision made sense on one level. The
I-401
was his flagship, and he didn’t want it captured by the enemy. It was also an honorable way to die. But Ariizumi’s option made Nambu ache with regret. Here they were, the war finally over, practically in sight of their homeland, and the commander wanted to bury them at sea. Yes, it avoided the ignominy of capture while preserving the honor of the Imperial Japanese Navy, but it wasn’t the fate Nambu wanted for his men.

Nambu knew the lives of his crew depended on what he did next. Unfortunately, in all his years as a naval officer, he’d never faced such a dilemma. Would he violate the command structure he’d sworn to uphold? Would Ariizumi even stand down if confronted?

Nambu had to do something, and he had to do it quickly—otherwise Ariizumi would act in his place. Time was running out. He had to act now.

That is, if the
Segundo
didn’t sink them first.

O
N
C
HRISTMAS
E
VE
1941,
LESS THAN THREE WEEKS AFTER THE
attack on Pearl Harbor, Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, commander in chief of Japan’s Combined Fleet, gathered his senior officers to discuss their next move.

Yamamoto’s attack on Pearl Harbor had gone better than planned. Though he hadn’t destroyed any aircraft carriers, he’d succeeded in knocking the United States out of the Pacific for six months, buying Japan the time she needed to continue her southern advance and consolidate territorial gains. Yamamoto was wise enough to know Japan stood little chance of defeating the United States in a protracted war, so the challenge remained: what to do next?

Yamamoto understood his enemy well. He’d first visited America in 1919 as a naval representative. During this time he read
Life
magazine,
¹
attended Harvard University,
²
and visited the U.S. Naval War College.
³
When he returned again in 1923, he made it a point to tour Detroit’s auto factories and Texan oil wells.
⁴
He’d even lived in Washington, D.C., the seat of American power, when he was later appointed naval attaché to the Japanese embassy. Yamamoto’s time in America meant he understood that the country’s natural resources and industrial capacity far outstripped Japan’s. He knew what he was up against.

Japan needed a large geographic empire if she was going to take her place among the first-rank colonial powers; an empire with sufficient resources to support and strengthen the Japanese military machine. Her expansion into China, Burma, Indochina, and the Dutch East Indies had been made with this goal in mind. But Yamamoto needed time; time to establish a defense perimeter that
would allow the Japanese Army to complete its southern advance and gain more than just a foothold in recently conquered territories. He also needed a way to make the war so painful for the United States that the American people would protest its continuation and demand that their leaders sue for an early peace. Japan’s best chance for expanding her empire lay in forcing the United States to the negotiating table.

Many Japanese leaders were convinced that Americans were decadent and weak. They not only lacked the Japanese fighting spirit, they didn’t have much tolerance for pain. Materialism had made them flabby.

Unfortunately, Japan didn’t have the resources to fight a prolonged war. That wasn’t the plan, however. The plan was to conquer those Pacific nations with the most vital commodities and to consolidate these gains behind a strong southern defense perimeter. Japan didn’t need to defeat the United States outright; she just had to hold America off long enough to secure her footing in Asia.

And Yamamoto was off to a good start. After her defeat at Pearl Harbor, the United States faced a two-ocean war, with much of her Pacific fleet damaged or destroyed. Now the admiral needed to find a way to take the war directly to the American mainland. The question was how?

No one knows the exact date when Yamamoto first came up with the idea of an offensive squadron of underwater aircraft carriers, but from Japanese accounts,
^*
he was toying with the thought in
December 1941.
⁵
After his carrier task force returned from Oahu, Yamamoto held a gathering of his senior commanders aboard his flagship,
Nagato
. His officers must have been impressed as they filed into the teak-paneled cabin, which looked more like the first-class saloon on a luxury ocean liner than a wardroom where officers met.
⁶
The battleship’s 16-inch guns, thick armor plating, and acclaimed speed made her one of the most powerful warships of the day. In spite of the opulent setting, the Combined Fleet’s commander in chief cared little for pomp and circumstance. He was famous within the IJN for being direct to the point of rudeness, an attribute appreciated by those Americans he’d met. As one colleague remarked, Yamamoto was a man who “succeeded in upsetting preconceived notions of the typical Japanese.”
⁷
This trait was in contrast to the IJN, which preferred a more collaborative decision-making approach.