THE OCCUPATION OF JAPAN

Since 06-26-05

From TOM PAINE'S JOURNAL: JULY 1945 TO JANUARY 1946

As the war drew to a close in July, 1945, I was Engineering and Diving Officer of the Fleet Submarine U.S.S. Pompon (SS-267) refitting at Guam after my seventh war patrol. We hadn't realized that the war was almost over; our hopeful slogan was: The Golden Gate in `48. I did note, though, that Japanese shipping had been almost completely driven from the seas, and the nightly B-29 fire bomb raids had become such "milk runs" that ComSubsPac had to issue a stern letter forbidding submariners from hitchhiking sightseeing rides over Japan on the night bombers. This took the ponderous naval form that always amused my father: This command views with alarm the growing tendency on the part of the junior officers to . . .

I began to wonder how long Japan could continue the war when our Marianas Armed Forces Radio Station started switching from English to Japanese for fifteen minutes every evening to broadcast a warning to Japanese civilians to flee the cities targeted for tonight's fire bomb raids. While a voice of doom slowly read the list of cities that our fire bomb raids would destroy by morning, I could hear nearby the roar of engines as the long stream of heavily laden B-29s rose into the night sky. This broadcast was not an act of humanity -- bombing civilian populations is inherently inhumane -- but a contemptuous display of America's overwhelming military power. As propaganda designed to inspire terror it sure beat "Tokyo Rose."

Without warning in the eventful second week of August dread mushroom clouds rose over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Russia declared war on Japan, and Emperor Hirohito's faltering voice told his stunned subjects that Japan was defeated and must cease hostilities. Despite the appalling tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I could only feel grateful to those who built the atomic bomb. They undoubtedly saved my life, and the lives of many hundreds of thousands of Americans and Japanese who would inevitably have been killed in a bloody Operation Olympic invasion of Japan. When the shouting died I was transferred to the submarine tender U.S.S. Euryale (AS-22) for intensive training in the Japanese language, as the U.S. Navy prepared to demilitarize the Imperial Navy's submarine force.

I'd made 7 war patrols in the Pompon since 1943, so there was a large lump in my throat as I waved goodbye to her. Stateside-bound, she backed out from the nest of boats alongside the tender, her long commissioning pennant, held aloft by balloons, rippling in the trade wind. My shipmates waved happily, and the skipper sounded a prolonged, triumphant blast on her whistle. Although unconvinced that she could dive safely without me, I wasn't ready to head back to the states. I was determined to marry and carry Barbara home with me. I wanted to head south, but north at least kept me in east longitude. At this time sharp-eyed Barbara spotted me in a news clipping in the West Australian, showing our language class on the deck of the Euryale at the Guam Submarine Base .

Admiral Lockwood's narrative of this period truly reflects our ambivalent feelings: elation that we'd finally won the war, mixed with rage and disgust over the enemy's brutal treatment of the few survivors from our lost submarines. I was one of the officers at Guam detailed by Admiral Lockwood to interrogate submarine P.O.W.s as they were flown in from Japan. We needed to prepare a muster list of all known survivors to ensure that we quickly recovered every prisoner still alive. We also wanted to learn the details of how each boat had been sunk -- but many remain simply "Overdue and Presumed Lost".

The Japanese Naval Staff was directed to prepare immediately a report in English specifying the time, place and circumstances of every submarine they'd sunk during the war. The handwritten document we received in response proved of little value; we'd lost 52 boats, but their ASW forces claimed some 500 confirmed sinkings. With some satisfaction I noted the Pompon's "certain destruction" on several occasions after some rude action.

Meeting the pathetic P.O.W.s was a sad experience. I had friends and former shipmates aboard many of our missing boats, and anxiously inquired for news of them. Of the 35 classmates who'd volunteered for submarines with me from the Reserve Battalion at Annapolis 7 had been lost. I asked everyone for news of J. W. Gamel in Sculpin (SS-191), R. O. Littlejohn and F. H. McKelvey in Grayback (SS-208), D. B. McCorquodale and W. C. Ostlund in Gudgeon (SS-211), W. A. Hoffman in Herring (SS-233), H. F. McKnight, Jr. in Robalo (SS-273), W. H. Turner in Shark (SS-314), C. E. Traynor in Albacore (SS-218), G. H. Eckardt in Scamp (SS-277), or W. B. Phelps and W. H. Mendenhall in Lagarto (SS-371). Bill Mendenhall's dress white uniforms were in my duffel bag; I was best man at Bill Hoffman's wedding the day we were commissioned at Annapolis; Ben Phelps had introduced me to Barbara in Perth. The grief I felt when their boats failed to return was renewed when none turned up among the human wreckage we recovered from the appalling P.O.W. camps.

Admiral Lockwood also recounts the story of the recalcitrant Japanese submarine squadron commander who shot himself rather than surrender. This was the above mentioned ComSubRon One, Captain Tatsunosuke Ariizumi. Neither Admiral Lockwood nor the Japanese authors mention the atrocities Ariizumi had committed in the Indian Ocean as skipper of H.I.J.M.S. I-8 operating out of Penang. On March 26th, 1944, Captain Ariizumi had methodically collected from the water and massacred 98 unarmed survivors of the Dutch merchantman Tjisalak he'd sunk south of Colombo. He was repeating this brutal performance with 96 prisoners from the American Jean Nicolet in the Maldives on July 2nd when he was forced to dive, leaving 35 bound survivors on deck. Next morning 23 survivors who'd managed to untie their bonds and swim all night were rescued by a Royal Indian Navy escort. The memory of these war crimes was probably a factor in Captain Ariizumi's decision to commit hara-kiri while his squadron was being escorted to Yokosuka by the U.S. Navy.

In September the Euryale set sail for Kyushu via Okinawa. On arrival we took care to enter Sasebo Harbor with all watertight doors dogged shut, steaming in the wake of our escorting minesweeper right down the middle of the swept channel. The wretched burnt-out city and oily harbor littered with wrecked naval vessels was an unforgettable sight, underscoring the tragedy of World War II for Japan. I wondered what insanity had led the leaders of this shattered nation to believe that they could defeat the United States.

I landed at the Sasebo Naval Base with the first boatload of marines; my orders were to seize samples of every type of torpedo, complete with chests of spare parts and special tools for each. We had learned to respect Japanese torpedoes, which substantially outperformed our own. Our first hours in Japan were extremely tense - rumors flew, and nobody really knew what to expect. We were well armed and prepared to deal with sporadic kamikaze attacks from diehard fanatics. One militant patrol boat crew threatened trouble, but the Japanese decisively handled this themselves, and everyone on both sides was relieved when an orderly local surrender took place. I soon found myself presented with a Japanese naval officer's sword and a detail of Japanese technical personnel to help me assemble my torpedoes and ordnance equipment. They spoke no English, so my broken Japanese began to improve through constant usage.

After much climbing around in wrecked buildings, and sloshing through the mud in dark, dripping caves, I assembled all of the requested ordnance for shipment back to the states. Some of the large Japanese torpedoes now on display in New London came from my collection. My Japanese torpedo expert used a procedure new to me to bleed the pure oxygen charge from an oil-coated Long Lance torpedo. I wondered how he would do this in view of the obvious fire and explosion hazard from mixing oil and oxygen. The operation proved to be simple. The torpedo was carted to the middle of an open field, where a junior rating was handed a wrench and instructed to open the oxygen valve after the rest of us had retreated to a safe distance; in response to a shouted order he spun open the valve and darted to safety. High pressure oxygen whistled out around the oily torpedo, but there was no fire or explosion - that time. It was far safer to go into combat armed with that mighty Japanese oxygen torpedo, though, than with our Bureau of Ordnance's poorly designed and inadequately tested Mark 14s and 18s, which sank at least two of our own submarines through lack of an anti-circular-run mechanism.

My torpedo collecting was just a side-line to our primary mission, which was to locate and disarm the Japanese submarine fleet, interrogate the crews, study the material and, when ordered, scuttle the boats. The duty of Boarding Officer for incoming submarines was rotated, and I happened to be on watch when the giant I-402 appeared off Sasebo from Kure and requested clearance to enter harbor in accordance with U.S. Navy orders. She was told to heave to, and a group of us shoved off to board her in a whaleboat. Our armed detail included an Interpreter, Chief Torpedoman, Gunners Mate, Signalman, and Radioman.

This was my first experience aboard an I-400 class submarine, and I recall my mixed emotions as we pulled alongside her towering hull and scrambled up her superstructure over the degaussing gear and onto her foredeck. I was excited to be carrying out a classic naval Boarders Away! operation, wary of the impassive Japanese who stiffly greeted us, curious about the unfamiliar aircraft handling equipment all around us, delighted to be directly involved in this historic finale of the undersea war, and concerned about both the technical and human problems involved in carrying out our orders to disable her torpedo, ordnance and radio gear before bringing her in. Perhaps that's a wild mix of emotions for a traditionally phlegmatic submariner, but you must bear in mind that I was only 23 years old. In his sea classic Youth Joseph Conrad captures my feelings perfectly:


And then I saw the men of the east - they were looking at me . . . I have known its fascination since; I have seen the mysterious shores, the still water, the lands of brown nations, where a stealthy nemesis lies in wait, pursues, overtakes so many of the conquering race, who are proud of their wisdom, of their knowledge, of their strength. But for me all the East is contained in that vision of my youth. It is all in that moment when I opened my young eyes on it. I came upon it from a tussle with the sea - and I was young - and I saw it looking at me. Ah! The good old time - the good old time. Youth and the sea. Glamour and the sea!

A grim looking Japanese officer conducted us across the catapult and up the port ladder to the top of the hangar. We walked aft, then climbed onto the bridge, whose bizarre offset position distracted me. I exchanged proper salutes and introductions with the Captain, then pointed to the gold dolphins on my blouse and said slowly in what I hoped was impeccable Japanese: Watakushi wa Beikoku no Kaigun no Sensuikan shoko: Painu Tai, des! (I'm an American Navy submarine officer: Lieutenant Paine.) He looked perplexed and unhappy, and mumbled something in reply which neither I nor our interpreter caught. Eventually we made ourselves understood, though, and arranged for his petty officers to conduct our specialists to the designated compartments, with our interpreter to facilitate communications and report back. This left me surrounded by the non-English speaking officers and bridge watch, who clearly didn't realize that I was speaking to them in Japanese. This was disheartening after all those studious hours aboard the Euryale, but I just raised my voice and plunged on.

The I-402's navigator kept insistently repeating something like Hobby Sea Toy, which I struggled to link to some English or Japanese nautical phrase. Then it came to me: Haben Sie deutsch? - he must have made one of those long I-Boat voyages from Penang to Germany. Ja, Ja, Herr Leutnant, aber mein deutsch ist nicht sehr gut! Konnen Sie mein nippon verstehen, bitte?, I asked, before trying again in Japanese: Anata wa Watakushi no Nihon go wakarimaska, kudasai?" (Can you please understand my Japanese?) "Ah, so! Sehr gut, sehr gut!" he replied, bowing respectfully. This told me nothing, but everyone else on the bridge thought that two great linguists had established communication. Fortunately word was soon passed up that all was secure below, and we mustered enough fractured Japanese-English-German-sign language among us to bring her in to her moorings. When I got to know the Japanese officers better, I found out that part of my problem was that our interpreter instructors had been taught by elderly Japanese-American ladies who spoke only old fashioned, honorific Japanese. Instead of barking orders in proper quarterdeck style I'd been most respectfully and politely requesting. The puzzled Japanese must have thought we were a boarding party from Gilbert & Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore under orders from Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B.:

For I hold that on the seas,
The expression "If you please,"
A particularly gentlemanly tone implants,
And so do his sisters and his cousins and his aunts.

Sasebo was our home port, but the Euryale (known fondly to her crew as Urinal Maru) also sailed around Kyushu, and up through the Kii Suido and Inland Sea to Kure, to pick up a number of surviving I-Boats at that major naval base. It was eerie to sail along the Japanese coast and realize that it was no longer dangerous enemy territory that we must attack. As landmarks familiar through the periscope slid by I hummed a raucous song we'd written after sinking a small transport at dawn off Muroto Zaki. The song ruefully hailed the ability of Chidori-class torpedo boats to locate us with sonar pings and lay down clangorous depth charge patterns:



PINGING PETE CHIDORI
(Tune: Pistol-Packing Momma)
Off Muroto Zaki, we were having fun;
Along came Pete Chidori,
And now we're on the run.

Oh, lay that pattern down, Pete!
Lay that pattern down!
Pinging Pete Chidori, lay that pattern down!

Click Click - BANG!
Click Click - BANG!
Click Click - BANG!
- Anonymous, U.S.S. Pompon (SS-267)

Now the Chidoris were laid up; instead of exploding torpedoes and thunderous depth charge attacks, picturesque fishing sampans dotted the sea. The tranquillity seemed unreal.

The mines in Kure harbor had not been completely swept, but Hiro Wan was clear. We anchored six miles out from the burned out Navy Yard and put our ship's boats into the water to ferry boarding parties to the Japanese submarines moored around the harbor.

I remember that first boat trip on a sunny autumn afternoon past picturesque pine clad islands. The scene was right out of a Hiroshige print, except for the fire-blackened hulks of shattered warships canted at rakish angles around the oil-smeared shores. Passing the awash decks of the wrecked battleships H.I.J.M.S. Hyuga and Haruna we drew alongside H.I.J.M.S. I-58, a large Kaiten-carrying submarine with six suicide torpedo launching racks visible.

The deck watch announced our approach, and tended our lines as a group of officers climbed out of her forward torpedo room hatch and lined up on deck to receive us. Our scarce interpreters were assigned elsewhere, so I climbed aboard I-58 with only a non-Japanese speaking fellow submariner and naval intelligence officer, hoping we'd find someone aboard who spoke better English than my halting Japanese. We were in luck as the Commanding Officer introduced himself in highly-accented but understandable English as Commander Mochitsura Hashimoto, I.J.N. He invited us below to conduct our business, and led us past the empty Kaiten racks, down the hatch into the forward torpedo room, and aft through a bulkhead to the wardroom, where we sat around a table with him and three of his officers; on the table lay his sword.

This was first U.S. Navy contact with the I-58, and the dramatic scene that ensued in her wardroom is very clear in my mind's eye. I refused Captain Hashimoto's offer to surrender his sword, explaining that I had come aboard specifically to issue disarmament instructions and to learn about the I-58's operational career. He said proudly that of course he'd been expecting us since "this is the submarine that sank the U.S. Navy warship that carried the Atomic Bomb."

We were astonished at this statement, and exchanged looks of consternation - what was he talking about? Atomic weapon information was Ultra Secret; we had never been told which ships transported atomic bombs. As we fired questions at him he drew out a chart for us and described precisely how he'd recently sighted, approached, attacked and sunk the U.S.S. Indianapolis (CA-35). He told us that he'd manned his Kaiten torpedoes, but had decided that conventional torpedoes were adequate for such a simple attack: it was a clear moonlit night with a calm sea, a target proceeding at moderate speed without zigzagging, an advantageous position forward of her beam, and no signs of sonar transmissions or escorts. He'd easily sunk her.

We knew of the sinking of the Indianapolis, and the tragic loss of life that ensued when a bungling staff failed to note her absence while her dwindling survivors battled exposure and sharks for days. 17, 18, 19, 20 We had no idea that the Indianapolis had carried the fissionable core for the first atomic bomb to the Tinian B-29 base, though. How did Commander Hashimoto know this? Did a P.O.W. from one of the final B-29 raids reveal it? Had we missed a relevant news release? Or could the I-58 have picked up and interrogated an unknown survivor from the Indianapolis? This still remains a mystery to me. To Commander Hashimoto's dismay we later sent him back to Washington to testify in the court-martial of the skipper of the Indianapolis, Captain C. B. McVay, U.S.N. Commander Hashimoto considered this highly improper.

While we were at Kure I drove over the hill in an Army jeep to see Hiroshima. Both Kure and Hiroshima were utterly devastated, with rubble and gray ashes extending as far as you could see. Each was a chilling sight. I wondered whether their destruction had resulted in a net saving of lives by ending the war without a bloody invasion, and consoled myself with the conclusion that it probably had - at least I hoped so. I didn't see how it could have made much difference to the devastated populations of the two cities how the flames had been lit: the A-bomb demolition of Hiroshima and the total destruction of Kure by fire bombs looked much the same. The difference was the number of bombers employed, and the mind-boggling implications for the future. Like many Pacific veterans, I believe that the horrors of Hiroshima ended the savagery of World War II, and discouraged a hot war between the super-powers (many of my academic friends disagree with this).

By November 2nd we'd gathered together in Sasebo enough operational Japanese submarines to require some administration, so on that date I received Memorandum No. 4-45 from ComSubDiv 131, Commander James E. Stevens, U.S.N., organizing the boats for which we were responsible into four divisions:

Japanese Submarine Division One - Lt.Cmdr. F. B. Tucker, U.S.N.

H.I.J.M.S. I-158
H.I.J.M.S. I-162
H.I.J.M.S. I-201
H.I.J.M.S. I-202
H.I.J.M.S. I-203

I-158 (8 Torpedo Tubes) and I-162 (6 Tubes) were older 1640 Ton, 20 knot Kaigun Dai (Large Fleet) Submarines with 4.7 inch deck guns and 200 feet test depth. Launched in 1927/30 as I-58 and I-62, they were renumbered and retired to training duty in 1942, then hastily refitted in 1945 to launch five Kaiten torpedoes against the expected U.S. invasion fleet. I-201 to I-203 were Sensuikan Taka (Fast Submarines), modern 1070 Tonners designed for mass production with four torpedo tubes and 360 foot test depth. Like the German Type XXI they were true submarines, with 5000 HP motors, streamlined hulls and a great battery capacity. With a submerged speed of 19 knots they would have shown a clean pair of heels to many escort vessels. I wanted to try one out in underwater exercises with an ASW team, and grumbled when this was rejected as too risky; it was hard to accept this quite sensible peacetime decision.

Japanese Submarine Division Three - Lt.Cdr. Paul R. Schratz, U.S.N. 21

H.I.J.M.S. Ha-201
H.I.J.M.S. Ha-202
H.I.J.M.S. Ha-203
H.I.J.M.S. Ha-205
H.I.J.M.S. Ha-210

The Ha-201 Class Sensuikan Taka Sho (Small Fast Submarine) was a new 320 Ton coastal defense boat with a test depth of 350 feet. Designed for mass production, they were armed with 2 torpedo tubes and had a snorkel range above 5000 miles. Their stream-lined hull and 1250 HP motor gave them an underwater speed above 13 knots and great maneuverability. In skilled and determined hands they could have given our ASW force a hard time. The Sasebo Navy Yard was full of additional Ha-201 Class hull sections in various stages of completion. I wondered how I might get one home - the ideal yacht for a retired submariner.

Japanese Submarine Division Four - Lt. Cmdr. J. D. Mason, U.S.N.

H.I.J.M.S. Ro-50
H.I.J.M.S. I-156
H.I.J.M.S. I-157
H.I.J.M.S. I-159
H.I.J.M.S. I-366

Ro-50 was a Kaigun Chu (Medium Navy) 960 Ton, 19.7 knot submarine of 1944 vintage with an 11,000 mile radius of action, 4 torpedo tubes and a 3 inch deck gun. The I-156, I-157, and I-159 were sister ships of the I-158, but with slightly different bows. I-366 was a 1440 Ton, 13 knot Type D.1 Cargo Submarine built in 1944 to transport 82 tons of cargo 7500 miles. She had a 5.5 inch gun and no torpedo tubes, but with the invasion looming had been refitted in 1945 to launch 5 Kaiten torpedoes. A contemporary photograph showed these boats sailing out to battle with their fervent young suicide torpedo pilots brandishing their swords atop their Kaitens. We lost one of these boats, I-363, to a mine while she was en route to Sasebo on 29 October off my old patrol area in the Bungo Suido. With the war ended this struck me as a particularly tragic loss, yet a few weeks before I'd have worked desperately to sink her. Sanity was rapidly returning.

Japanese Submarine Division Two - Comdr. J. P. Currie, U.S.N.

H.I.J.M.S. Ha-103 Lt. Y. Murayama, I.J.N.
H.I.J.M.S. Ha-105 Lt. T. Kiuchi, I.J.N.
H.I.J.M.S. Ha-106 Lt. T. Tatiyama, I.J.N.
H.I.J.M.S. Ha-107 Lt. S. Takezaki, I.J.N.
H.I.J.M.S. Ha-108 Lt. O. Oshiro, I.J.N.
H.I.J.M.S. Ha-109 Lt. Kunihiro, I.J.N.
H.I.J.M.S. Ha-111 Lt. Ono, I.J.N.

The Ha-101 Class Sensuikan Yu Sho (Small Supply Submarine) was a simple 370 Ton boat without torpedo tubes designed to transport aviation gasoline from Singapore to Japan or to carry 60 Tons or 103 cubic meters of cargo to bypassed garrisons within a radius of 3000 miles. The Ha-101 boats were equipped with snorkel and radar. Their top speed from a single 400 HP diesel was 10 knots, submerged endurance at 2.3 knots 20 hours, test depth 300 feet, armament one 25mm gun, and complement 21 officers and men. Lieutenant Kunihiro was the senior captain.

I list the names of the Ha-101 boat skippers in Japanese SubDiv 2 because I later became acting Division Commander - the peak of my naval career! A short boat ride each morning brought me to my nest of seven submarines, where I was formally greeted by the Commanding Officers. Lieutenants Murayama and Takezaki spoke some English, and my Japanese had greatly improved with constant usage (less recourse to: Ah, so des nay!), so our joint inspections proceeded smoothly.

Our orders were to keep the boats demilitarized, but to operate all equipment periodically and maintain readiness to get under way on 4 hours notice. After each boat had been methodically checked the seven skippers and I sat around the wardroom table in one of the boats to settle any problems that had arisen (an ill quartermaster, next week's rations, a hot engine bearing, typhoon moorings, low battery gravity, etc.). When business was over a warm bottle of sickly sweet orange beverage was produced (U.S. Navy regulations against alcohol were strictly enforced - for obvious reasons) and informal conversation followed. The topics discussed ranged from professional naval subjects to the complexities of their continual games of Go.

Our extreme curiosity about each other's submarine combat experiences soon overcame our initial reserve, and I learned a lot about their reaction to the surrender, war patrols of the boats in the harbor, emotions on launching Kaiten torpedoes, midget submarine operations, hazards of supply runs (they never suspected that we were decoding their rendezvous messages), their respect for American radar and contempt for our torpedoes, etc. These discussions were essentially verbal patrol reports delivered in Homeric style.

They confided that their initial reaction to news of Japan's defeat had been to sail at once on a mass suicide mission. Fortunately they'd cooled off soon after getting under way and soberly returned to port.

Ha-106 had supported a desperate long range air strike from Kanoya, at the southern tip of Kyushu, against Ulithi Atoll. Lacking sufficient range for the round trip, the bombers had ditched on the way home off Minami Daito Shima, 200 miles east of Okinawa, where Ha-106 lay waiting to pick up the aircrews. A number of the Ha-101 boats had patrolled the Bungo Suido, and served as submarine tenders for hundreds of the Kairyu (Sea Dragon) two-man midget submarines being prepared to repulse the U.S. invasion fleet.

Even the decrepit old I-158 had a story to tell. While patrolling 300 miles north of Singapore on 10 January, 1942, she'd sighted and fired at H.M.S. Prince of Wales and Repulse. The torpedoes missed, but her contact report brought in the 22nd Naval Air Flotilla from Thailand bases; the two capital ships were sunk by air attacks before dark, dooming Malaya.

Ro-50 had had several brushes with U.S. carrier task forces. She was credited with sinking a carrier and destroyer 150 miles northeast of Lamon Bay in the Philippines on 25 November, 1944, but the U.S. Navy recorded no such attack. She was more successful 300 miles southeast of Surigao Strait on 10 February, 1945, when she torpedoed and sank the U.S.S. LST-577.

The venerable I-157's saga included running hard aground at high speed in a dense Aleutian fog on Little Sitkin Island. She only escaped by throwing overboard everything portable, firing all torpedoes, pumping all fuel and water tanks dry, and breaking up and jettisoning over one hundred battery cells.

I-366 had released 3 Kaiten torpedoes against an American convoy 500 miles north of Palau on the evening of 11 August, 1945. She was credited with 3 sinkings, but the explosions she'd heard had only marked the ends of the torpedo runs, and their three brave young pilots.

Within a few days I was startled to notice that when I discussed submarine tactics and ASW countermeasures with the Japanese officers we'd unconsciously started to use the terms us and them to refer to Submarines and Surface Ships, not to Americans and Japanese. I was surprised how quickly close bonds of mutual professional interest developed from our shared experiences in a demanding, hazardous calling.

By mid November most of the operational Japanese submarines slated to be scuttled off Goto Shima were moored in Sasebo harbor awaiting final orders. It was decided that the unusual design features of the giant boats, and their implications for the new atomic and missile era, merited more detailed study in the United States. U.S. Navy Prize Crews were therefore ordered to prepare the I-14, I-400 and I-401 for a transpacific voyage to the Submarine Base, Pearl Harbor. The Euryale would follow in January bringing with her two of the high underwater speed boats. 21 Thus I received orders to leave my roomy quarters aboard the sub tender and report to Commander J. M. McDowell U.S.N., the current Captain of the Prize Crew of the U.S.S. Ex-H.I.J.M.S. I-400: for duty as Executive Officer and Navigator of that vessel.