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Standing on kaiten, pilots
say goodbye to friends
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The kaiten was a manned torpedo launched from a submarine, and after being
launched the pilot had no way to return to the submarine. Many Japanese kaiten
pilots perished without hitting enemy ships, since the kaiten had no escape
system or means to communicate with the mother submarine. This web site on
Kaiten Tokkōtai gives a detailed record, with numerous
historical photos, related to the Japanese Navy's use of the kaiten human
torpedo.
Yasuto Kato created this outstanding web site
after he found out his great-uncle died as a kaiten pilot. Lieutenant Fujio
Kawai, commander for the Hakuryū Group of the Kaiten Special Attack Corps, died
in March 1945 at the age of 23 when the submarine carrying his kaiten was
sunk by a U.S. submarine. This web site contains Kawai's album of 18 photos and
a page on his personal history. The site's wealth of other material reflects
Katō's thorough research and the support he received from the National Kaiten
Society and former kaiten pilots.
The web site has separate sections for the ten different groups of the Kaiten
Special Attack Corps. These ten groups had individual names (e.g., Todoroko,
meaning "great roaring sound"), and each group included submarines
that departed from homeland bases at or near the same time. The site includes
background on kaiten and the Pacific War, firsthand accounts written by former
kaiten pilots, and information on recent memorial ceremonies, books, and
documentaries. The site also has a message board and a page with links to other
web sites on special attack forces.
The site's English section contains many pages and has acceptable
translations. One especially interesting page gives an English translation of an
interview
with two former kaiten pilots, which was originally published as an article
in the May 1999 newsletter Tokkō (Special Attack). They candidly discuss
recruitment, training, and how they viewed death. Although the English section
has numerous historical photos and details, no page provides a historical
summary of Japan's kaiten program. The book Kamikaze
Submarine by Yutaka Yokota, a former kaiten pilot, gives the basic
history of kaiten operations, so reading this beforehand will help web site
visitors better appreciate the photos and other detailed information.
The webmaster, Yasuto Katō, presents the historical material in an objective
manner and also gives opinions from former kaiten pilots and others. He states
that his objective is that we never repeat war nor suicide attacks. He writes,
"I, as a webmaster of this antiwar web site, pay my profound respect to the
souls of all who perished in wars all over the world. I sincerely hope their
souls will be with us in achieving our goals of establishing world peace in the
future."
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