Of all the bizarre of warfare tactics: Kaiten “human torpedoes” may take the cake

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In the final months of WW2 the Imperial Japanese Navy was facing a situation they once thought impossible.

Their mighty fleet had been destroyed, their aircraft carriers and battleships sunk by US torpedoes and bombers.

Worse, the inviolable Japanese homeland was herself under threat. On one thing the Japanese were clear: the US Navy could not be allowed to reach Japan, and in her defense everything should be considered.

This is the thinking which led to the Kamikaze attacks on US warships, Japanese pilots willingly crashing into the US fleet and committing suicide in order to bring death and destruction to the enemy. And this is the thinking which, in a similar vein, led to the Kaiten.

In many ways the Kaiten was an even more horrific strategy than that of Kamikaze. Japanese engineers modified a type 93 torpedo, equipping it with 1.5 tonnes of explosives and a human crew.

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The Kaiten saw action in the Pacific, becoming known as the “Long Lance” due to its exceptional range. With a capacity for twice as many warheads and the extraordinary ability to hit targets up to 42 miles (78 km) away while moving at 36 knots

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On November 20, 1944, a loud explosion echoed through the Ulithi Atoll in the West Caroline Islands at around 5:45 am in the morning. The USS Mississinewa, an oil tanker stationed near the entrance of the Ulithi lagoon, serving as a vital refueling base for over 200 US Navy vessels fighting against the Japanese in the South Pacific, was directly struck by a new top-secret weapon of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

One of the Kaiten torpedoes’ creators, Lt. Sekio Nishina, took charge of the weapon on a particular morning in November and fired it from a mothership submarine. It is believed that his human torpedo collided with the USS Mississinewa.

The massive 3,000-pound (1,360 kg) warhead of the human torpedo caused a spectacular explosion, creating a major hole in the port side of the Mississinewa. Then, an aviation gas tank’s vapors caught fire and caused another explosion.

Over 100 of the torpedoes would go on to be used in suicide missions against the US Navy. The Kaiten became among the most feared of Japanese weapons, due to its exceptional range, its potential to deal enormous damage, and its terrifying accuracy.

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