The Japanese Submarine Force and World War II

By Akihiko Yoshida

When first published in 1995, this book was hailed as an absolutely indispensable contribution to the history of the Pacific War. Drawing heavily from Japanese sources and American wartime intercepts of secret Japanese radio messages, a noted American naval historian and a Japanese mariner painstakingly recorded and evaluated a diverse array of material about Japan's submarines in World War II. The study begins with the development of the first Japanese 103-ton Holland-type submergible craft in 1905 and continues through the 1945 surrender of the largest submarine in the world at the time, the 5300-ton I-400 class that carried three airplanes. Submarine weapons, equipment, personnel, and shore support systems are discussed first in the context of Japanese naval preparations for war and later during the war. Both successes and missed opportunities are analyzed in operations ranging from the California coast through the Pacific and Indian Oceans to the coast of German-occupied France. Appendixes include lists of Japanese submarine losses and the biographies of key Japanese submarine officers. Rare illustrations and specifically commissioned operational maps enhance the text.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Naval Institute Press
• Release date: Jan 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9781612512068

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The Japanese

Submarine Force

and World War II

This book has been brought to publication

with the generous assistance of Marguerite and Gerry Lenfest.

The

Japanese

Submarine

Force and

World War II

Carl Boyd and

Akihiko Yoshida

BLUEJACKET BOOKS

Naval Institute Press

Annapolis, Maryland

This book has been brought to publication by the generous assistance of Marguerite and Gerry Lenfest.

Naval Institute Press

291 Wood Road

Annapolis, MD 21402

© 1995 by Carl Boyd and Akihiko Yoshida

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

First Bluejacket Books printing, 2002

ISBN 1-55750-015-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Boyd, Carl.

The Japanese submarine force and World War II / Carl Boyd and Akihiko Yoshida.

p. cm. — (Bluejacket books)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-61251-206-8

1. World War, 1939–1945—Naval operations—Submarine. 2. World War, 1939–1945—Naval operations, Japanese. 3. Japan. Kaigun—History—World War, 1939–1945. I. Yoshida, Akihiko, 1943– II. Title. III. Series.

D783.6 .B89 2002

940.54′5952—dc21

2001057970

TO ALL SAILORS WHO HAVE SERVED

BENEATH THE SEAS

Contents

List of Illustrations

Preface

Introduction: Basic Concepts of Submarine Strategy and Tactics

Appendixes

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Illustrations

Photographs

A Japanese Holland-type submarine, circa 1908

The I-71 looking forward from the quarterdeck, April 1939

A two-man Japanese midget submarine found in June 1960 near the entrance to Pearl Harbor

The midget submarine rammed and depth-charged by the USS Monaghan in December 1941 used as filling for a new sea wall at Pearl Harbor

Sakamaki’s midget submarine at Mare Island, September 1942

The I-68 under way at 23 knots in 1934

The sinking of the USS Yorktown (CV-5), 7 June 1942

The wreck of the I-1 being examined by U.S. Army intelligence personnel, 11 February 1943

The wrecked hulk of the I-1 in Kamimbo Bay, Guadalcanal

A RO-100-class submarine photographed near Rabaul by an Allied aircraft in March 1943

The port auxiliary engine room of the I-14

The water-tight hangar door on the I-400

Inside the I-400’s hangar designed to hold three seaplanes

Looking forward from the bridge of the I-14

The forward torpedo room of the I-58

The I-14, I-401, and I-400 at Guam, November 1945

The snorkel device of the I-400-class submarine

Japanese submarines tied up at the Pearl Harbor Submarine Base, 27 February 1946

The sinking of a Japanese submarine off Sasebo in April 1946

Maps

Preface

The performance of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s submarine force in World War II fell far short of prewar expectations. The Japanese naval high command was inaccurate in its anticipation of the type of war it would embark upon in 1941, and the submarine force, in particular, quickly became a victim of unrealistic military planning and preparation. First designed to weaken a U.S. fleet of 21-knot battleships en route to an anticipated massive clash with Japanese dreadnoughts in the western Pacific, the submarine force was from the outset of the war confronted by much faster U.S. aircraft carriers after the successful Japanese attack on battleship row in Pearl Harbor. The submarine force was left groping for an effective strategic and operational plan of action while a sophisticated U.S. Navy undersea force quickly hardened to the reality of wartime conditions.

The lackluster performance of Japanese submarines in Hawaiian waters in December 1941 did not compel the high command to modify prewar plans for the submarine force. The formidable undersea arm of the Imperial Navy operated aimlessly and without a coherent strategy in the opening months of 1942. Inflexible prewar battle objectives usually held sway, or any new ones were often ill-conceived and incomplete. Moreover, in the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway the Japanese submarine force again failed to measure up to prewar expectations, but opinion of the navy high command continued to hold that submarines should be used chiefly to assist in the decisive battle of capital ships. Then came the surprise American offensive at Guadalcanal, and the crisis situation after late 1942 seemed to require the use of submarines in particularly dangerous supply and evacuation missions. The fate of the Japanese submarine force was sealed

The force often operated helter-skelter during the war, being constantly obligated to commit submarines in unanticipated and ever increasing and dangerous crises. Submarines undertook a wide variety of assignments; for example, they were deployed along picket lines in an attempt to ambush and pursue enemy naval forces, only to be ordered and sometimes reordered to dash elsewhere when enemy forces were discovered beyond the original picket lines. Submarines were assigned to reconnoiter heavily guarded enemy ports and advance anchorages. There they sometimes launched midget submarines, human-piloted torpedoes, and aircraft, with minimal results. Submarine aircraft also dropped a few incendiary bombs on Oregon forests, and submarine deck guns fired on other minor targets on the American mainland and various islands. In addition to supply and evacuation operations with bypassed Japanese island garrisons, submarines transported highly explosive gasoline for refueling seaplanes. Moreover, the Japanese undertook other dangerous submarine transport operations with their German allies on the other side of the globe, with whom they exchanged personnel and small amounts of strategic goods, such as quinine and tungsten, and blueprints and prototypes of war machinery. There were also various forays into the Indian Ocean, but crises in the Pacific often forced the boats to concentrate there against strong and rapidly advancing Allied forces. These highly dispersed operations characterized much of Japanese submarine strategic and operational activity throughout the war. The occasional entreaty advocating concentration against enemy sea communications and extended U.S. supply lines, particularly to the South Pacific and Australia, was always played down and usually rejected.

Further explanation for the failure of the submarine force has its roots in the shortcomings of Japanese naval doctrine. The Imperial Navy’s neglect of antisubmarine warfare (ASW) before the war proved deadly to the wartime Japanese merchant marine, but the Japanese submarine force was also adversely affected. Japanese submarines were poorly prepared to cope with U.S. Navy ASW operations.

During months of work against German U-boats in the Atlantic before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Navy had the experience of escorting convoys, experience that sharpened ASW skills. The Japanese navy had no such wartime experience. When war came, Japanese submariners were unaware that they could be so effectively and systematically pursued on the surface by enemy radar and beneath the sea by sonar. Japanese submarines made little deliberate effort to avoid detection by such sophisticated sensors; moreover, Japanese submarine-borne radar and active sonar used later in the war were primitive by U.S. Navy standards and of little consequence. With no significant ASW doctrine, Japanese submariners, unlike their American and German counterparts, had little understanding of the theories of sound promulgation in relation to temperature layers or water stratification. Careful maneuvering while submerged could reduce the chance of detection, but deeply submerged Japanese submarines usually ascended directly to periscope depth to reconnoiter in a quick 360-degree sweep and then surfaced, fearing only the possibility of being spotted directly and visually by an enemy patrol. Japanese submarines were usually large, powerfully armed, and fast on the surface, but once detected they made good targets because of their slow submerged speed, poor maneuverability, and limited diving depth. Finally, a lack of concern about ASW manifested itself in submarine designs that failed until late in the war to emphasize noise-reduction features.

In spite of the enormous hardships and losses suffered by Japanese submariners (127 of about 160 large submarines in service during the war were lost), their spirit never faltered. Loyalty and unit cohesion remained strong among the elite members of the submarine force. Many of them, especially enlisted men, came from poor farm families; these young men frequently volunteered for submarine duty, in part, for the extra pay submariners received. They were thus able to send more money home to help their families. The special pay, however, also made submariners the envy among surface sailors. Therefore, these circumstances and the prestige associated with submarine service reinforced Japanese submariners’ sense of pride and commitment to their service and fellow undersea comrades. Japanese submariners, like submariners in the American and German navies during the war, were loyal and dedicated sailors who functioned courageously and competently in the most trying of circumstances.

This book owes its genesis in 1988 to Dean C. Allard, who was then Director of Naval History, Naval Historical Center, and to Kanji Akagi, then Visiting Scholar, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. These two scholars, quite independently, offered encouragement and facilitated the initial meeting of the authors at the Admiral Nimitz Foundation symposium, Submarine Operations in the Pacific, 1941–1945, in Fredericksburg, Texas, May 1989. Thereafter, the work took shape slowly over the next few years through additional meetings of the authors, frequent correspondence, and much research in an array of sources in Japan and the United States.

The authors are indebted to many people for their help in writing this book. Mary Jo Valdes at the Pacific Fleet Submarine Memorial Association kindly made available some important submarine materials. We are grateful to Admiral Kennosuke Torisu, a retired veteran submariner of the Imperial Japanese Navy, and to Dr. Christopher W.A. Szpilman, a Japanese scholar formerly at Old Dominion University. Malcolm Muir Jr., Professor of History at Austin Peay State University, and the late Captain Paul R. Schratz, a retired U.S. Navy submariner, provided much useful information. The late Professor David C. Evans read an earlier version of the manuscript, and his generous and insightful criticisms proved invaluable to the authors as we made revisions. This volume has also benefited from the assistance and reflection of several Old Dominion University students, particularly David A. Kohnen, Sheryl L. Mednik, Toshiaki Kaneko, and Chiyoko T. Quasius. The maps drawn by Pamela Wheary, a graduate student of cartography, represent a special effort to help illustrate the text.

We are also indebted to the staff members of the Naval Institute Press, whose labor and imaginative suggestions have helped immeasurably to make our work easier. Moreover, Patricia E. Boyd has been an extremely insightful copy editor, and Robert J. Richardson has created a smart and sensitive index—to these independent professionals go our special thanks.

The Japanese

Submarine Force

and World War II

Introduction

Basic Concepts of

Submarine Strategy

and Tactics

The sudden arrival of U.S. Navy Commodore Matthew Perry with four steam-powered warships in Japan in 1853 was a show of force that highlighted the vulnerability of Japan’s insular society and its minuscule navy. Japanese naval strategists recognized their weakness and soon became convinced that Japan could best resist foreign demands with a modern naval force. Thus, Perry’s arrival gave impetus to a new naval defense policy. By the turn of the century Japan’s navy had grown into a reasonably sophisticated steam-powered force; indeed, Japanese warship tonnage increased from a modest 14,002 in 1872, to 65,582 in 1894, to 256,816 in 1902, to 579,877 in 1912.¹

Tactical and strategic operational plans for fighting an enemy’s battle fleet grew similarly. Operational plans were in their infancy by the early 1890s, but the new Imperial Navy’s baptism of fire and victory in the war with the Chinese in 1894–95 gave great incentive for further planning. More significantly, the sweeping naval victory over the Russians in 1904–5 proved a just reward and was particularly decisive in the future of the Japanese navy. After these wars the Japanese were optimistic and devoted much effort to developing a viable national defense policy. The time was right, then, for Japan, as an increasingly industrialized and ambitious nation, to set up a formal process for estimating military requirements and their close associations with the needs of foreign policy.

The first of a series of strategic plans was developed early in the new century. In the Imperial Defense Policy (Kokubō hōshin)—published first in 1901 with new editions appearing in 1910, 1912, 1920, 1928, and 1934—national strategic planners designated the United States as the probable enemy. Consequently, the U.S. Navy became the chief rival of the Imperial Japanese Navy in an anticipated struggle over hegemony in the western Pacific. Updating was a constant process in each edition of the Imperial Defense Policy, but intense study to meet new contingencies was undertaken particularly in 1918 near the end of World War I, in 1923 after the Washington Naval Treaty, and in 1936 after the Japanese government terminated its obligations under the earlier naval treaties and arms limitation agreements.² In each of these updated revisions the U.S. Navy remained the Japanese navy’s foe.

In spite of significant changes in the international balance of power by the eve of World War II, the basic strategy of the Imperial Navy did not change after 1907. A decisive battle with a weakened U.S. Navy in Asian waters was the goal. This would be achieved in part by repeated attacks on the American battle fleet during its anticipated crossing of the Pacific to the vicinity of the Mariana Islands, as the plan eventually developed from the late 1920s into the 1930s. Japanese occupation and use of American bases in the Philippines and on Guam would also help weaken the American fleet while it was steaming westward; obviously, the Americans would also be denied support from those bases.³

In 1936 Japanese naval strategic planners estimated their requirements for a successful battle with the U.S. Navy: 12 battleships, 10 aircraft carriers and their air groups, 28 heavy and light cruisers, 6 torpedo squadrons with 6 light cruisers as flagships and 96 destroyers, 7 submarine squadrons (each with a light cruiser to serve as squadron flagship and 10 submarines), and 65 land-based air groups. Impressive though this force was, the Japanese estimated that it would probably be 70 to 80 percent of the strength of the U.S. Navy.⁴ The Japanese knew that as the Pacific War approached, the American navy was heavily involved in the Atlantic, so there was almost a balance between Japanese and American naval forces in the Pacific. In some categories, for example, in aircraft carriers available for Pacific operations, the Japanese navy could claim superiority. On the other hand, although no longer restricted by treaties after the mid-1930s, Japan found that the weakness of its own economic, industrial, and technological base inhibited the strengthening of the navy. Thus, as war with the United States drew nearer in the late 1930s, many Japanese naval officers were uneasy, seeing that it was their destiny to fight against a superior navy, as fate had befallen the Japanese earlier in their battles against the Chinese and Russian navies.⁵

Operations for the Systematic Reduction of the Enemy Fleet

The leaders of the Japanese navy fully understood that because they would have to fight a stronger American navy (they anticipated that U.S. Navy ships in the Atlantic would reinforce the Pacific fleet), they had to reduce American battleship strength—the mainstay of all navies of the day—before it could be concentrated against them in the western Pacific. Accordingly, they developed elaborate tactics to wear down the American battle line.

Navy Battle Regulations (Kaisen yōmurei) evolved as a preliminary work. The writings of Lt. Comdr. (later Vice Adm.) Shinshi Akiyama, a brilliant naval strategist and tactician, provided the foundation for the first edition of the regulations in 1901. These regulations were of great value to the Japanese during the Russo-Japanese War, and later they served as a significant backdrop for the more far-reaching and aggressive plans of the 1930s. However, Akiyama’s heyday was on the eve of World War I, largely before submarines and other important technological innovations like air power came into play in later decades. Thus, his specific comments about submarines were understandably limited. For example, he wrote that

The submarine, a newly emergent type, has begun to transform what up to now has been the surface tactics of naval warfare into three-dimensional, subsurface warfare. It [the submarine] will become a formidable weapon in the future, but because its development is still in its infancy it is a bit early to rank it as battle-worthy. Instead, we may properly regard it now as a mobile subsurface mine.⁶

Akiyama’s estimate of the worth of the submarine at the time is understandable; his strategic thinking focused on the decisive battle that was to end a naval war, a battle in which submarines of the day could not provide assistance.

With the precedent of Akiyama’s instructions and naval success at Tsushima in 1905, new and increasingly elaborate and comprehensive plans were developed, particularly starting in the mid-1920s. At that time American maneuvers in Hawaiian waters convinced Japanese admirals, as one American historian has argued, that the United States Navy appeared to be rehearsing a decisive battle for the distant waters in the western Pacific. Officers of Japan’s Navy General Staff divided their strategy into two parts: the attrition stage and the decisive battle.⁷ Auxiliary forces, defined in the Imperial Navy as essentially all naval units other than battleships, chiefly held the role of carrying out systematic reduction or protection operations. During a nighttime destroyer torpedo attack on enemy battleships, heavy cruisers were to prevent or check any attack from enemy forces. In all torpedo attacks the destroyers were also expected to provide an effective antiair and antisubmarine screen for the main force. Moreover, while maintaining a tactical advantage, the heavy cruisers were to guide Japanese battleships to the enemy’s main force. In such anticipated battle action the light cruisers would reconnoiter in advance of the Japanese main force. Carrier airplanes were to fly reconnaissance missions near the battle as well as maintain air superiority above the battle fleet and attack the enemy with torpedoes and bombs whenever possible. Finally, available land-based air-area groups would establish wide air surveillance.⁸

The Role of Submarines in the Decisive Battle

By the 1930s battle instructions for submarines far exceeded Akiyama’s earlier reflections. Modern long-range submarines received crucial and complex assignments. Indeed, on the eve of the Pacific War, as one scholar states succinctly, Japan’s admirals planned to use their newly developed submarines and bombers to grind the American fleet down as it crossed the Pacific.⁹ Submarines were to reconnoiter the enemy bases and anchorages. Then they would track and pursue the enemy fleet after its sortie, radio news of the enemy’s activities to the Japanese fleet commander, and repeatedly ambush and torpedo the enemy’s main force while it sailed westward to the Marianas for the decisive battle. Thus Japanese submarines, like most other auxiliary units in the Imperial Navy, had the main task of weakening the enemy battle fleet as much as possible before the decisive clash of dreadnoughts. However, submarines were expected to have far more direct contact with the enemy over a longer period of time than would any other type of Japanese warship, and this expectation heightened the sense of their importance.¹⁰

A more complete delineation of the instructions outlining the role of submarines in the decisive battle is essential to understand the prewar mind-set of Japanese admirals (see appendix 1 for the general battle instructions of 1934 and Combined Fleet Tactical Instructions of 1943). Broad instructions in 1934 stipulated that submarines attack the enemy’s main force, independently or in coordination with other Japanese units. Submarines were generally to aid the battle line in any way possible, including action to prevent enemy battleships from maneuvering to a position for launching a surprise attack on the Japanese main force. But aspects of the prewar mind-set were carried over into the more specific instructions of the war years. Although the 1943 instructions anticipated many operational and tactical situations in elaborate detail, one cannot escape the impression that these instructions were rigid, stilted, and somewhat artificial. The experience of two years of war had little benefit on the design of specific instructions for the submarine force in 1943, as will be discussed later in this book.

Although the chief goal of submarine prewar doctrine always sought first to serve the interests of the battle fleet, a brief flirting with an alternative submarine doctrine came early in the interwar period. When Japan was an Allied power in World War I, the Imperial Navy gained valuable experience by escorting Allied forces in the Pacific and Indian Oceans and, late in the war, in the Mediterranean Sea as well. Japanese officers clearly saw the importance of providing reliable protection of sea communications during World War I. Thus, the Japanese submarine force was initially built in the 1920s with the intention of deploying it against enemy sea communications as well as against the enemy’s main fleet in a decisive battle. But the submarine force was small, too small to be divided between the two missions. Furthermore, there was little interest in the doctrine advocating destruction of enemy sea communications because the destruction of the enemy’s battle fleet was crucial and such a difficult problem. Once the enemy’s fleet was crushed, Japanese planners assumed that a battle-seasoned submarine force would then find it easy to destroy enemy sea communications. Therefore, the subject was studied very little in naval schools and during training exercises. Only one paragraph was devoted to the subject of enemy lines of communication in the 1943 edition of Combined Fleet Tactical Instructions. The few submarines assigned specifically to attack sea communications during the Pacific War were also always ordered to seek and attack the enemy warships. Only secondarily were submarine commanders encouraged to attack convoys and individual supply ships along major sea routes or at entrances of protective harbors or anchorages. Emphasis was placed instead on proper deployment of Japanese submarine forces to support the battle line most effectively.¹¹

There were also strong historical reasons behind the Japanese battle fleet doctrine. Japanese naval planners and strategists were held captive by their past success. In their analysis of the naval war of 1914–18, they emphasized surface clashes—the battle of Jutland was an example—and played down the effectiveness of U-boat warfare against British seaborne commerce. Some U-boat accomplishments early in the war, such as the U-9’s sinking of three British 12,000-ton armored cruisers within three hours on 22 September 1914, left an indelible impression with Japanese naval planners. The same submarine sank another cruiser nearly three weeks later, and the U-27 damaged the seaplane carrier Hermes in a torpedo attack at the end of October. The Japanese studies also emphasized the cooperation of German U-boats with the High Seas Fleet in the Jutland operation, particularly in what the British feared was a U-boat trap.¹² This Japanese perspective suffered from the lingering influence of the Japanese great victory at Tsushima in 1905. The victory was so impressive that it predetermined strategic thinking in the Imperial Navy—later Japanese admirals could think only of duplicating Admiral Heihachirō Tōgō’s great feat.

A Japanese naval observer assigned to the Royal Navy during World War I, Comdr. (later Adm.) Nobumasa Suetsugu (1880–1944) was a strong advocate of submarine interaction with fleet strategy, and in his studies of the German example and the debate in the British press, he emphasized that the submarine was a dreaded weapon for use against warships. As one Japanese historian has recently written, Suetsugu, as commander of the First Submarine Squadron (1923) and head of the First Section (Planning) of the First Department (Operations) of the Navy General Staff (1923–25), was responsible for working out the ‘attrition strategy’ . . . [that] assigned to large, high-speed submarines the important mission of wearing down the enemy’s main fleet on its transpacific passage, in addition to patrolling and defending the Western Pacific.¹³ In various lectures in the 1920s, for instance at the Navy War College, Suetsugu, then vice chief of Navy Staff (1928–30), stressed that Japanese submarines should attack the American fleet as it left Pearl Harbor.¹⁴ Called yōgeki sakusen (interceptive operations), this new submarine element that was appended to the traditional concept of a decisive battle was expected to reduce the combat abilities of the American battle fleet by 30 percent by the time it reached the western Pacific.¹⁵ Suetsugu, later commander in chief of the Combined Fleet (1933–34) and eventually minister of home affairs in the First Konoe Cabinet (December 1937 to January 1939), had considerable influence in naval matters, particularly in the late 1920s and in the 1930s.¹⁶ He was also a right-wing extremist, particularly regarding war against China. Evidence suggests that he held only slightly less radical views regarding war against the United States. When asked by a representative of the Army General Staff whether the navy was seriously considering war with the United States, Suetsugu answered, Certainly, even that is acceptable if it will get us a budget.¹⁷

A rapidly changing Japan brought with it a number of traditional Japanese values and attitudes into the twentieth century, yet late in the nineteenth century through the 1930s the government increasingly pursued an expansionist mission. The Japanese military became an instrument of policy, and the major component of expansionism in the nation’s foreign policy rested heavily upon the armed forces. Powerful Anglo-American interests had established themselves earlier in the areas the Japanese were beginning to regard as their rightful spheres of interest. These conflicting