@
Decided to
organize the first Manned Torpedo Special Attack Force.
All my fellows crashed into the enemy ships to protect Japan, no
matter what.
A column of tremendous fire rose in the thunder roaring southern sea.
Served them right.
Despite my
determination to go with them, I was given a painful command to
stay.
The picture was taken when
organizing Kaiten Special Attack Force was decided. (around
September, 1944)
>From left, Chief Petty Officer Fukumoto, Sub-lieutenant Toyozumi,
Sub-lieutenant Kawakubo, Sub-lieutenant Nishina (Founder of Kaiten),
Sub-lieutenant Kawai, Ensign Fukuda, Ensign Watanabe, Chief Petty
Officer Furukawa.
*For adoption of
Kaiten*
Sub-lieutenant Nishina
(sitting in the center of the picture above, the 71st graduate from
Naval Academy) invented Kaiten with Lieutenant Kuroki (the 51st
graduate from Naval Engineering School, died while training.) They
persuaded the upper levels of the Imperial Navy with the petition
sealed with blood to adopt Kaiten.
Parents of both
Sub-lieutenant Nishina and Lieutenant Kuroki were great educator. It
seems that the fact they were grown up with their parents' profound
love made them worry about their country and led them to do this.
Lieutenant Kuroki died on
his second day of training. Inside Kaiten stuck in the bottom of the
sea, he kept writing his will of over 2,000 letters and the
admonition he got from the accident for his fellow Kaiten pilots
until he was suffocated to death.
While Sub-lieutenant Nishina took the lead and sortied as the
Commander in Chief of the first Kaiten Group "Kikusui."
<Martyrdom of Lieutenant Kuroki, one of the Kaiten
inventors and Lieutenant Higuchi>
<The sortie of Kaiten
Group "Kikusui", Submarine I-47>
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