Messengers of the Deep 深海の使者
Messengers of the Deep 深海の使者
“The summer grass, ‘tis all that’s left of ancient warrior’s dreams”, the famous Haiku poem by Haiku Master Matsuo Bashou is what comes to mind, as I look at the black and white photo from many years ago, taken at the Kriegesmarine R&R Lager Lemp (Erholungslager, recovery area) of the 2.U.Flottille in the U-boat base at Lorient, France.
The Japanese names chalked onto the cross beams at a farewell party at the Lager so many years ago have long been a topic of outstanding inquiry, as to who they were.
I can now finally share with you the identity and fate of most of the Japanese names from left to right.
Hideo Ohtani and Tsuneo Yamashita were both navy officers aboard the 4th IJN submarine mission to Germany on IJN Sub “I-29”.
I-29 left Kure for Germany on 5th November 1943, carrying various metal supplies needed by the Germans. They further picked up in Singapore, 16 passengers on assignment to Germany. It successfully reached Lorient on 11th March 1944, after nearly 90 days on transit.
The return cruise to Kure departed Lorient on 16th April 1944, loaded with engines for the Me163 and Me 262 jet fighters as well as complete blueprints for those planes, as well as the body section of a V1 rocket, 20 Enigma code machines, an engine for a torpedo boat, etc.
It successfully managed the “Roaring 40s” around Cape Hope and entered the relatively calm and safe Indian Ocean, safely reaching Singapore on 14th July, where it unloaded the Enigmas. But after departing Singapore on the last leg of their long journey back to Kure, they were ambushed by a pack of three US subs, the Sawfish, Tilefish and Rock on July 25th. I-29 was cruising on the surface at that time.
On the tower, at that moment, was Navigating officer Lieutenant, Hideo Ohtani, Torpedo Chief, Ensign, Tsuneo Yamashita and Chief Petty Officer Kohsuke Onda, the only 3 that could bail in time from the rapidly sinking vessel that took 3 torpedo hits. Commander Kinashi, winner of the Iron Cross for having sunk the US Carrier, Wasp went down with 94 of his men and 10 passengers.
Ohtani and Yamashita were thus incredibly lucky to be on watch when the torpedoes struck, but that was as far as luck would bless them. The three, thrown out in the water, spied a faint outline of a faraway island and Ohtani suggested that they make towards that piece of land.
Ohtani, being a graduate of the naval academy, was an excellent swimmer and Yamashita was also a competition swimmer at the annual contests at Kure base. In comparison, Onda had a poor chance with swimming for survival, and constantly lagged behind the two officers. But the two officers goaded him on and waited until Onda caught up to keep the group together. However, as the sun set and seas became rougher, the three men drifted apart and lost contact. Ironically, it was only Onda, the Chief Petty Officer that miraculously washed up half dead on an island, all black, covered in heavy oil.
The bodies of the two able swimmers, officers, Yamashita and Ohtani were never recovered.
By the way, the partially visible name before Ohtani’s name may well be that of Engine room officer Lieutenant Hiroshi Taguchi, who also went down in I-29.
Yoshio Yamamoto, the rightmost name on the cross beam was a Navy Gunzoku stationed in Germany. He met up with others at Berlin Anhalter Station, early in the morning of 21st July 1944. They were to greet and board the 5th sub mission arriving from Japan, which was I-52, arriving with among other things, 20 tons of gold ingots Japan was supplying to Germany. This sub, however, never made it to Germany. The wreckage was discovered by treasure hunter Paul Tidwell in spring 1995, who was after the gold bars, but it was at a depth of more than 5000 meters, so salvage was abandoned.
As Yamamoto lost his ride home on the I-52, he had to return to the Japanese Embassy in Berlin. Then the Embassy was requested by the German authorities, on 10th April 1945, to evacuate to the Austrian Alps, where the Germans were supposedly determined to hold out to the very end. This evacuation request from the German authorities had been pre-arranged by Navy Gunzoku, Naoe Sakai, who had been working at the Japanese Embassy in Berlin for as long as 25 years. He was convinced that Ambassador Oshima and all other military men attached to the embassy would choose suicide over becoming prisoners, so in order to prevent their unnecessary deaths, he had made a secret request to the German government through a Kriegesmarine Lt. Commander he had befriended, telling them that the Japanese deserved an evacuation order to continue the fight with the Germans and that otherwise they will surely kill themselves in Berlin.
Yamamoto joined the 4th Embassy exodus group of 14th April, consisting of 6 members escaping to the port of Warnemünde by car, led by a Wehrmacht Major, and joined other Japanese engineers carrying design drawings supplied by Heinkel. But by end of April, the Russians were nearly upon them, so they departed towards Sweden on 1st May, upon a torpedo boat the IJN had purchased earlier from the Kriegesmarine. His group was taken into the custody of the Swedish Navy. There the war ended for him and after Japan’s surrender, he was shipped back to Japan via Manila on 29th January 1946, along with roughly 300 other Japanese that had been stranded in various parts of Europe. He arrived back in Japan on a Spanish ship in end of March 1946.
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