Operation Storm: Japan's Top Secret Submarines and Its Plan to Change the Course of World War II (43 page)

Ariizumi was not out of touch with headquarters, though. Sixth Fleet communications were still broadcast, and the subs picked them up at night when they surfaced.
¹⁰
Receiving a radio signal was far different from sending one though—it didn’t betray a sub’s location. Radio silence, then, was an important reason Nambu had made it this far. It also maintained the crucial element of surprise.

W
HILE THE
631
ST
readied ten
Seiran
for transport,
¹¹
Asamura worried about the combat readiness of his pilots. Sub crews were kept busy with myriad tasks. Even the
Seiran
maintenance workers had plenty to do. But
Seiran
pilots and their observers had no assigned duties on board the sub.
¹²
As days passed, Asamura worried they were losing their edge.

In truth,
Seiran
aircrews were nothing more than high-priority passengers being transported to launch coordinates. Other than maintaining careful watch over their aircraft, they had little to occupy
them. Regardless, the
I-401
’s crew treated them like gods.
¹³
Though it was good for morale, Asamura worried that three weeks of inactivity would hurt pilot readiness.
¹⁴

The pilots had lost their appetite, for one thing. They subsisted mainly on canned spinach, soy sauce, and ginger, hardly the breakfast of champions. Lack of exercise was another problem. The
I-401
might have been big, but it was so crammed with men and supplies that the
Seiran
pilots spent most of the day either lying in their bunks or hanging around the radio shack.
¹⁵

Asamura passionately believed that the
Arashi
mission was their last chance for heroic achievement,
¹⁶
so he decided to do what he did best: impose a strict regimen.

One of the first things Asamura did was have his pilots assigned to lookout duty.
¹⁷
Searching for the enemy in darkness was one way to keep night flying skills sharp. Asamura didn’t want to rely solely upon a special hormone designed to improve night vision that would be injected before the attack.
¹⁸
He also had his pilots rehearse takeoff procedures while sitting in the cockpit
¹⁹
and held mission briefings using photos and a scale model of Ulithi’s anchorage.
²⁰
Finally, he initiated a calisthenics program, held on deck, to keep his men in shape.
²¹

It’s not unusual in Japan to drill men to the point where fatigue is a greater impediment to success than lack of preparedness. This wasn’t the case for Takahashi. He had it easy aboard the
I-400
. When he grew tired of lying in his bunk, he’d go to the radio room and listen to the broadcasts out of Sydney. Sometimes he’d chat with the communications officer.
²²
Despite the effort to fill his days, Takahashi still had plenty of time to think. One memory he may have avoided was the atrocities he’d committed while serving aboard the
I-37
.

It was February 22, 1944, when one of the
I-37
’s lookouts spotted the
British Chivalry
, an unescorted grain carrier sailing between Melbourne and Abadan. The
I-37
sank the merchant using a combination of torpedoes and deck-gun fire. When the
Chivalry
was gone, her lifeboats were beckoned and the ship’s captain ordered on board the sub. Takahashi had held a pistol while the captain was interrogated. He’d also relieved him of a briefcase full of jewels.
²³

Takahashi knew SubRon 8’s policy was to execute survivors of ships they’d sunk. For justification, he was told Japanese women and children had been indiscriminately killed during the invasion of Saipan.
²⁴
The lifeboats were too close for the sub’s machine guns to be used effectively, so combat rifles were issued. Takahashi used his sidearm instead. At least 13 men were killed and five wounded.
²⁵

The
I-37
sank two more British merchants after that, killing their crews in a similar manner.
^†
If Takahashi felt regret, he didn’t express it. Even the “Butcher” was penitent.

A
S
U
LITHI DREW
closer, the
Seiran
pilots grew increasingly sentimental. Knowing their days were numbered, they dwelled in the past even as they drilled operational details into their heads. One of the popular songs of the era, “Cherry Blossom Classmates,” or
Doki no Sakura
, perfectly captures their mind-set. The song celebrates the friendship of two former classmates, now naval aviators destined to die in battle. Few things represent the Japanese view of life better than cherry blossoms, and the song expresses the wistfulness many Japanese feel about life’s beautiful and transitory nature.

In addition to being sentimental, the absurdly young
Seiran
pilots weren’t above wearing good luck charms. Their talisman of choice was the
senninbari
, or “stitches by a thousand people.” The
senninbari
was a plain cotton wrapper worn like a cummerbund around the stomach. Designed to ward off harm, it was made by a man’s mother, wife, or sister. The custom had been around since the Meiji era and was hugely popular. Even in the summer of 1945, women could be found on street corners politely asking passersby to contribute a stitch. When 1,000 stitches were collected, the
senninbari
was ready to be worn.
²⁷

T
HE DAY AFTER
Ariizumi received instructions for a second assault, the
I-400
passed east of Saipan.
²⁸
It was just before dawn the morning of August 5, and the sub had recently finished charging her batteries.
²⁹
Shortly after Kusaka submerged, a malfunction in the maneuvering room’s electrical distribution panel caused it to catch fire. Sparks shot everywhere as the board began to burn. Moments later, the power went out.
³⁰

Fire is the worst condition that a closed system like a sub can face underwater. It can’t vent smoke, precious oxygen is consumed, and the air is soon poisoned. Kusaka ordered the maneuvering room’s hatches shut and closed the
I-400
’s ventilation system, but noxious fumes had already spread.
³¹

His next action was to surface. Unfortunately, the morning sun revealed a U.S. task force on the horizon, so Kusaka had no choice but to submerge again.
³²
This time the
I-400
descended out of control forcing her crew to grab hold of anything they could find while the sub sank by the stern. When a gauge showed them passing their safety depth, many feared the worst.
³³

The blackout only compounded Kusaka’s problems. Without bilge pumps, which require electricity to operate, water built up in the maneuvering room. The water not only risked shorting out additional equipment, it was pulling the
I-400
down at a steep angle.
³⁴
Fortunately, Captain Kusaka regained control before
his sub reached crush depth, but they were hardly out of trouble.

As the U.S. task force steamed overhead, the
I-400
slowly began to expire. It’s hard to know which was worse: to die from asphyxiation or at the hands of a U.S. warship. Without ventilation, however, the temperature inside the sub soared, while the dimness of the emergency lights only added to the oppression.

The air was so noxious, the crew’s eyes burned, their throats became sore, and many developed headaches.
³⁵
Those men who weren’t on duty took to their bunks to consume as little oxygen as possible.

It took more than five hours to complete the repairs.
³⁶
Time passed so slowly, they must have felt they were already dead. By the time repairs were finished, the
I-400
’s oxygen had almost run out. Kusaka wasn’t sure whether the task force was still around, but he had to surface. When the
I-400
broke through the waves, he was relieved to find the ocean clear.

Meanwhile, the
I-401
had also met the enemy. In fact, Nambu had encountered so many U.S. warships, he was forced to submerge up to ten times a day.
³⁷
This meant the detour Ariizumi had ordered was taking longer than anticipated. Unfortunately, there was nothing Nambu could do about it. Everywhere they went, an unbroken line of U.S. warships steamed toward Japan. Though it added time to their overburdened schedule, Nambu did his best to evade them.

One morning Nambu bade Yata, his chief gunnery officer, to the conning tower to look through the periscope.

“Hey, Shooter,” Nambu called, using Yata’s nickname. “Look here. We could sink any of these ships with a single shot!”
³⁸

Nambu knew the
I-401
had to remain concealed. Mole ops had taught him restraint meant survival.
³⁹
But it was frustrating just to watch.
⁴⁰

W
HEN
K
USAKA HEARD
that an atomic bomb had been dropped on Japan, he was more concerned about missing his rendezvous than
about the devastation. Because of the delays, his rendezvous with Nambu had been pushed back.
^‡
41
But when Kusaka surfaced at the location after sunset August 13, the
I-401
was nowhere to be seen.
⁴²
Undaunted, Kusaka remained on the surface, expecting to receive the
I-401
’s identification signal at any moment.
⁴³
When dawn approached and the
I-401
still had not appeared,
⁴⁴
he began to worry. Kusaka could have radioed his commander. But to do so might have given away his position. One thing he couldn’t do was remain on the surface. The area was swarming with enemy ships, and if their sharp eyes didn’t spot him, their radar would. The
I-400
prepared to submerge.

Kusaka hoped the
I-401
was just delayed, but his chief navigator jumped to the more obvious conclusion.

“Either I’ve made a navigational error, or the
I-401
has been sunk,” he told Kusaka.
⁴⁵

Unfortunately, after double-checking his calculations, the chief navigator concluded they were in the right place. That left only one explanation.

The
I-401
had been destroyed.

T
HE FIRST INDICATION THAT SOMETHING UNUSUAL WAS HAPPENING
came a few days before the
Segundo
left Midway on her fifth and final war patrol. A U.S. carrier strike against Japan’s third-largest island was suddenly called off on August 5. Additionally, Admiral Lockwood had been told to pull back his submarines at least 100 miles from Kyushu’s coast.
¹
This was strange, considering U.S. forces had done nothing for the past year except press closer to Japan. If Lockwood’s subs were being withdrawn, something big was up.

Five days later, on Captain Johnson’s thirtieth birthday, the
Segundo
departed Midway. Several officers had been lost to crew rotation during the sub’s month-and-a-half layover. New arrivals included Lt. (jg) C. A. Hennessey, Ens. R. S. Byers, and QM3c Carlo Michael Carlucci. Nevertheless, more than half the sub’s original crew remained on board since her commissioning. Among them were the sub’s XO, Lt. John “Silent Joe” Balson, and Lt. (jg) Lewis Rodney Johnson. Chief of the Boat Edward A. Russell had also been with the sub since the beginning, as had Chiefs Carl Stallcop and J. T. “Doggy” Downs. Together these six men had 30 war patrols under their belts. When you added seven more for Captain Johnson, the total was nearly 40. Whatever the crew might have thought of their “medal-waving” captain, the
Segundo
was a well-seasoned boat.

Lieutenant Balson wasn’t bothered by the recent change in command. He knew sub captains came and went with regularity. It was always better to learn how a new skipper liked things done when he joined a boat. And if his eccentricities rubbed you the wrong way,
well, a smart XO kept it to himself. Balson certainly knew how to keep things to himself; he wasn’t nicknamed “Silent Joe” for nothing. Unfortunately, the other officers on board didn’t always share this attitude. As the
Segundo
departed Midway, the grumbling continued.