Kaiten Program

The Kaiten Program was a secret program within the Japanese navy during WWII. It involved small underwater torpedos called kaitens which could be manually controlled by a human pilot who would be able to steer the torpedo into it's intended target. The kaiten was designed by Sub Lt. Hiroshi Kuroki and Ens. Sekio Nishina

The first wave of kaiten missions were documented in a journal kept by Subaru Tsukiyama which starts on August 1, 1944.

The program was run off of Otsushima island. The following were key members of the program:


 * Commandant Ujina - leader of the kaiten group
 * Slick - chief engineer
 * Mrs. Oshige - mother figure for the soldiers
 * Takashi Higuchi - died on training mission along with kaiten co-creator Sub Lt. Hiroshi Kuroki
 * Vice Admiral Miwa of the 6th fleet gave a speech at the predeparture banquet

The following submarines were used to transport the first wave of kaitens.

I-47 Captain: Lt. Cdr. Zenji Orita carried the following kaiten pilots:


 * Ens. Nishina
 * Ens. Sato
 * Ens. Watanabe
 * Lt. Fukuda

I-36 Captain: unknown carried the following kaiten pilots:
 * Lt. Yoshimoto
 * Ens. Toyozumi
 * Ens. Imanishi
 * Ens. Kudo

I-37 Captain: unknown carried the following kaiten pilots:


 * Lt. Kamibeppu
 * Lt. Murakami
 * Ens. Utsunomiya
 * Ens. Kondo

I-333 Captain: Cpt. Yokota carried radioman first class Hosokawa along with the following kaiten pilots:


 * Lt. Yutaka Abe (squad leader, 24 years old)
 * Lt. Shigenobu Goto (22 years old)
 * Ens. Issa Kusakabe
 * Ens. Subaru Tsukiyama