Man-Driven Torpedo "Kaiten" Remembered

A bit of etymology to help your reading easier. Kaiten stands for two elements of meaning: kai for rotating and ten for the heavens. Kaiten, therefore, means "rotating the heavens". It broadly means "changing the unchangeable" and further "reversing position".

In 1944, about a year before the end of the war, Japan was in the last phase of counteroffensive. In a desperate effort to check advancing US naval forces, the Japanese military created a man-driven torpedo named Kaiten, 15m-long, 1m in diameter, cruising speed 22km per hour. It was a suicidal weapon under the water equivalent to Kamikaze zeros in the air.

The first two prototype Kaitens were completed in July, 1944 and immediately flung into action. A total of 420 Kaitens were built by the end of the war but used as weapons only after May 1945.

A total of 1,375 were trained to pilot Kaiten but only 87 actually drove the craft and died. 15 died while training and 2 committed suicide after the war. More died while training to pilot Kaiten than any other suicidal weapons. The total number of Kaiten-related deaths aggregated 145.

Data contradict between US Naval statistics and the National Kaiten Society over the number of vessels sunk and damaged by Kaiten.

A ceremony was held in Otsushima on November 8 in memory of 145 Kaiten pilots and servicemen all in their 20s who died either as pilots or in servicing the craft. The first Kaiten left the island in November 1944 and the islanders hold the memorial ceremony every year at this time.

370 or so of survivors of Kaiten pilots attended the ceremony. A high school student from Tokyo whose grandfather had lost his brother on board Kaiten commented:

"I was told my grandfather's brother was glad to go to war, but I personally feel very said and have mixed feelings".