Kaiten - Japanese Suicide Torpedoes of WW2
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- Опубліковано 21 вер 2024
- An overview of "Kaiten" a human piloted torpedo
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Movies/Games featured:
Below the Sea 2006
Eternal Zero 2013
#ww2 #submarine
The Italians had already developed something like this with one major improvement: the pilot could eject and escape
Italian human torpedo has detachable warhead that would be tied under a ship's keel. It's not a suicide weapon and the crew escaped using the torpedo
Very dishonorable
goes to show that if management of one project says "it cant be done"(diver escaping the mini torpedo), there are always bright heads from another management team that make it happen...
The British X craft was intended to drop its charges and GTFO
One big disadvantage: high chance of the pilot that escaped the torpedo get captured
Literally an exploding coffin. Getting trapped in one sounds like absolute nightmare fuel
don't worry friend, you can't get out even if you wanted to.
What?
It opens from the outside.....
x_x
Like computer guided torpedo in modern time, except the computer is replaced with a human
@@Kruppt808 That sounds oddly familiar.
they liked it
Feels like an iron lung thing but with even more neglect
Saw a Kaiten when I visited Pearl Harbor. Thing is absolutely menacing and bigger then one would think. The thought of climbing in one and never leaving is horrible.
Misread it as "Saw a Kitten...".
The book "I Boat Captain" talked a bit about _kaiten_ pilots. Thanks, but no thanks!
I once read a story of a Kaiten pilot whose Kaiten kept breaking down so he survived
@@dudududu1926 have your eyes checked.
Jk
@@paleoph6168 dyslexia prob
"What happened to Hiroshi?"
'He tried to practice!!!'
They were going to tell his momma. But they knew that Hiroshi's ma would blow up if they dropped that bomb on her, lol.
Pffffft
80 years later, billionaires would reinvent the same thing.
OceanGate 💀💀💀
I think the best write up I ever heard about Japanese suicicde tactics was from an episode of 'War at Sea'. "It was a battle between men fighting to live, and men fighting to die."
That goes hard af, solid quote and very true
doesnt make much sense. both sides where fighting for life and death for there country
@@terminallydrunk1900 both sides were fighting for their country but Americans wanted to live, the Japanese were more than happy to die an honourable death
@@terminallydrunk1900 the Japanese were fighting for the life of their country but were more than willing to openly sacrifice themselves to do so.
@Peppabot 1000 Here's a good read for you, Captain Isao Yamazoe and Sakae Oba. Not generals but underrated in terms of bravery.
It is kinda ironic to think about that Japanese went wild with suicide tactics in various method while the Americans were developing and using the first ever UCAV drone against Japanese in Pacific to avoid human casualties.
Japan is all the way on the other side of the world and the culture and attitude of Japanese citizens are so far removed from how Americans view life. Its literally like being on a different planet.
I rather enjoy Japan’s dedication to any craft or vocation tho. Theres artistry in everything they do. I remember watching Jiro Dreams Of Sushi and they were interviewing an apprentice who explained how he spent 3-4 months making only one thing before it was good enough for the chef to serve it. 200 mess ups over the span of 4 months to make one dish:
Egg Sushi…..
The apprentice said he was so happy when the chef finally approved of his eggs, that he started crying
I can't think of anything more abjectly terrifyingly than climbing into a tiny metal tube that you can't escape from and knowing it's the last place you'll ever see.
Damn, this hits different right now
Titanic sub took notes lmao
@@bluebooooo7165 Yeah so funny five people lost their lives. I really hope you realize sometime in the future how stupid you sound.
Man, it's almost as if that same scenario just happened 😂
Well they volunteered
When you succesfully dogde a torpedo but suddenly it shouts banzai
Funny
They have one featured at the Yamato Museum in Kure, Japan. It even has a personal voice-recorded message of a pilot bidding his farewell to his mother and why he has chosen to fulfil his deathly duty.
Good Lord. That's eerie.
@hafiz2664
That’s just sick, Lot of good it did, right? They all threw their life in the trash can. I was diagnosed w/ stage 3A grade 3 breast cancer Nov 2023 at age 39…primary tumor, satellite tumor next to it, and 4 lymph nodes. Puts things in perspective. I’ve come close to death 2x before with my near-fatal catastrophic car accident and hemorrhagic stroke that I fully recovered from (aside from this high muscle tone in my left leg). Life is precious. Suicide for severe depression is one thing but for war?! There’s so many ppl who would gladly take the life they’re flushing. They were all pressured into this whether by ppl or culture or gov’t etc … and too weak to assert themselves. No backbone and no gratitude for the life God gave them. Died so they could miss a boat then sink or explode. Out of 300, 1 hit something IIRC and it had few ppl on it. Maniacs
@@NicoleStevensHays11x You’re very strong. I understand your pains. I was born with a rare genetic condition, and was only one of two people known to posses it up until a few years ago. Obviously, there’s no cure for genetic conditions (and there won’t be until we have Gattaca-level DNA manipulation science/tech) so all you can do is manage the other problems it brings on. My specific condition (FLNC gene mutation) mainly targets musculoskeletal stuff. I had to get most of the tendons in my left arm/hand lengthened and rearranged early on. And unfortunately, your heart is a muscle, so I ended up with two rare kinds of childhood cardiomyopathy (Restrictive and Hypertrophic) and ended up needing a heart transplant at 9 years old. It also caused severe scoliosis as I grew so I ended up needing a 16” spinal fusion from C7-T7 when I was 12. That one f’d me up the most…leaving large areas of my body either numb or with chronic nerve pain over the skin. It’s also required me to get on pain medicine in recent years due to the hardware in my spine slowly drifting away from the vertebrae it was screwed into. I’m legitimately still upset for not deciding to take action against that doctor for not even trying a back brace for a month or two before launching me into life changing surgery…but I digress. My condition also caused this weird thing where I have hundreds of very small air filled sacs on my lungs called “blebs”. Being a dumb 13 year old, one night at a friends b-day party I decide to smoke some weed for the first time. Well, since it was my first time smoking anything, it heated up the air in the sacs causing them to expand and pop/leak. That landed me in the hospital for eight months straight while they tried to figure out how to stop my chest cavity from filling up with air. Since there were so many, they just kept slowly leaking. I ended up going through 8 lung surgeries. 4 mechanical pluerodesis and 4 chemical. The mechanical one feels like someone punched you in the chest over and over again when you wake up from surgery, but the chemical one feels like someone lined the outside of your lungs in gasoline and set them on fire. I just turned 24, and am just glad to be alive.
My great grandpa during soviet japanese war became a witness of an event that always would bring him to tears when retelling it. He was serving as a sailor on a soviet ship in East sea and during his daily routine he saw 2 small japanese boats coming out of the cliffs. Fire was opened almost immediately but they were coming at a such pace that they just dodge bullets by going left and right. In the end both of them rammed and exploded against one of the soviet ships. It sunk like a ton of bricks and many people died that day.
It is one thing to die from the hands of equally strong opponent but loosing hundreds of men to just a handful of japanese kamikazes hits different, you may never know what fate awaits you just around a corner.
what date aproximately did this happen ? (AND WHICH ship did sink ?)
salutations.
@@oddballsok Warship "Smeliy" (Смелый), his name was Mamonov Stepan Savelyevich. He was serving from 1941 up to 1945 when Soviet Japanese war started. Exact month and day of the event that occured is unknown unfortunetely, and i can't ask him since he passed away long time ago.
@@antonandreyevichstepanov4131 I don't mean to doubt your story or anything, but the only Smeliy/Smely I could find was a Storozhevoy class destroyer that was mined and scuttled in the Irbe Strait, off the Gulf of Riga. Other than that, a cursory search through records of Japanese suicide motorboats, known as "Shinyo", haven't produced any results other than attacks on subchasers, landing craft, troopships, and destroyers belonging to the U.S. Navy. If the incident in question happened, I wouldn't be surprised if the Kremlin decided to cover it up, or the officers in charge concealed it from higher-ups to avoid punishment, or any one of a number of factors. I don't doubt your great-grandfather saw something happen, but he may have misremembered it or embellished it. Aging does that, even to the best of us. It also doesn't help the fact that practice was very common during the Great Patriotic War, you could have any number of conflicting accounts among men who served in the same unit, or complete fabrications courtesy of Pravda. Your great-grandfather could very likely have seen a Shinyo attack, only for them to be sunk before they could complete their run while out of his sight, and then Japanese artillery fire striking one of the Soviet ships and causing significant damage some time later. I wouldn't even be surprised if someone painted "Smeliy" onto a ship since it means 'Valiant' once translated. That's a very fitting name for a ship, one that Party members would likely insist on being reused just for the patriotic value of it. I've seen photographs of Soviet tanks with slogans, patriotic exclamations, and personal names on them, so a sailor doing it to their ship makes some sense.
@@nickgraff9413 I appreciate your effort in research, i myself didn't dig deep enough into my family past (kinda shameful tbh). Probably should find more info on his past. The fact that the story i told is a retelling of the story doesnt help it either, my uncle told me about it and he heard from it my great grandpa. Thank you for your reply i really appericate it.
@@nickgraff9413 Googled some info just now, could only find 1 destroyer named "Smeliy" but it was sanked in the first Russo-Japanese war, way before the service of my great grandpa. I think he might heard the story of it and later in life just incorporated it into his memmory due to his age or trauma. Still going to dig dipper if i gonna have an opportunity.
Edit: Found a real name of the ship he was serving on it was named "Reshitelniy" and not "Smeliy". My mom memorized a wrong name for quite a while.
Did these men ever think about how their senior officers didn't get in the suicide torpedoes?
Some of the developers were senior officers. They died n training, but one hit a ship.
They would never question authority
@funonvancouverisland not outwardly, but I'd be willing to bet that a lot of them thought it was a bit off. Yeah if they'd questioned authority outwardly, that'd be it. Plus another aspect to think about is that almost all, if not all, kamikaze missions and assignments were volunteered for. So it's not like you get put on a shit detail of pulling weeds at the motorpool, while sergeant secret squirrel is smokin and jokin with the hot mechanic, y'know?
eh, sorta. The officer corps was just as fervent as the enlisted.
@funonvancouverisland little cowards… something is wrong when ur too cowardly and weak to question being sent off to die by someone who will go on living
they should have put Tojo and his ilk in these....
Tojo did try to commit suicide.
Hideki Toho. 😡
@@shanjida8353 without any honor .....
Interesting. I read a book by one of the surviving kaiten drivers way back in the 70s. The vid filled in a lot of details, especially about how they looked inside.
Do you happen to remember the name of the book?
I would be interested to know too please
@@Chris-mt4yq Unfortunately I lost a lot of my books in the last move. It was printed in the late 70s, or early 80s but thats about all I recollect. Try googling it.
@@sabrekai8706 thank you! I will look it up!
@@sabrekai8706 You're awesome thank you man
Imperial Japan was so obsessed with making weapons suicide friendly back in the day lmao
If your torpedo is out, YOU ARE THE TORPEDO.
The correct translation for Kaiten should be "Turn the Tide" (Of the war), "回" means turn somethings back to where it should be, and "天" means a situation or something, at that point of war it means bad situation.
I know KaiTwo is a monster, but KaiTen must be terrifying.
Thanks for providing insight on this type of suicide sub. It would be cool if you did a video on a similar airborne version of this called the “Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka”👍
literally most underrated youtuber on this site
love your videos man, would love to see a video on the soviet mine dogs they tried using.
@@redred7289 dancing and prancing. We are doing this dog a huge favor.
Cosmo Kramer
I heard the program failed because they used Soviet tanks for training and as those were diesel powered they sounded and smelled different from the allied tanks which at that time had gasoline engines. So the dogs would not run under the allied tanks but instead they would target soviet ones.
Iron Lung might have been partially inspired by this, being sealed into the submarine from the outside and all.
Seeing those clips of the pilots inside the subs is genuinely stomach turning, I'm not super claustrophobic, but God that looks nightmarish and it's hard to imagine just having to be in one of those for the rest of your life, even if you die in a few hours
It definitely gives off iron lung vibes
@@drakep.5857 The sound of The heavy metal clunking to top it off too
Have a happy safe Christmas everyone. Taking the next week off for the holidays.
If you are looking for more content don't forget I have a second channel: ua-cam.com/channels/Xdv3sbzxb1K1Qvq4WvwKcg.html
Happy holidays Johnny!
Have a happy..YT free time....Merry Christmas and a Happy and prosperous New year, for you and all close to you...cheers Johnny...E...
"safety was not a priority" you don't say 😄
The old training school is open as a museum/memorial (including those who died in training). The Kaiten story always reminds me of CSS Hunley (a desperation weapon more deadly to its users).
On a slightly lighter side. "Kaiten" (Same first character, different second) is also the Japanese term for a "conveyor belt Sushi" set up (kaiten zushi). Considering how long some plates go around there, explosive reactions might not be out of place.
The meaning of the suicide torpedo kaiten(回天) is "radically change the state of the world" or "recover from an inferior position" ,
Kaiten(回転)zushi is "rotation" or "turning" .
Except the Hunley was never intended as a suicide torpedo. It was meant to keep floating/going on other missions but something happened which would likely be more than an accident
@@Cody_L._Brock They kept trying to use it after losing multiple crews AND the designer. I certainly wouldn't feel terribly confident of coming back from an operational mission (and by the time they used it the attack profile WAS suicidal, but they didn't know it yet). The point is, things were desperate enough that massively dangerous systems were tried in the HOPE that they'd be useful. All those Kaiten pilots dead on training or missions sank twice as many ships as Hunley (two versus one). That's a lot of brave young men for not much return in either case..
Excellent
I’m claustrophobic and have a fear of both suffocation generally and drowning specially
yup. me too lol
if they told me right before sealing me inside that there were some spiders in there, I think it would be my ultimate nightmare
You are hired. Thank you for volunteering. lol
A wonderfull bedtime story. Thank you, Jonny 😉 Small submarines like the German "Seehund" etc. would be great, too!
Tell me more please
Kamikaze attacks were very...interesting. I know air attacks were a lot more successful but that has to do with technical percentages (A plane has to fly through CAP, AA cover, attack, and back out through all of that where as a kamikaze only has to do one and the attack can be relatively inaccurate.) and I know that there were SEVERAL designs in use (The Ohka comes to mind only because my father is a history teacher and once incorrectly called it by it's American nickname of The Baka Bomb which means idiot bomb). Perhaps my favorite scene with a Kaiten is actually USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage where they discuss this new enemy wonder weapon, and one is used, only for the pilot to miss.
Oh yeah, that scene is great. It was a good way to introduce the captain of the sub that sunk the Indianapolis as well.
Exactly, I too read about this Mission, it's (tragically) ironical that the only success with this Mission was achieved with conventional means, showing how fooly and idiotical was this system
Officer: We have guided torpedoes.
Sailor: How?
Officer: You are the torpedo.
So strange to be trained to die. I really want to know more about how Japanese propaganda played a role in getting people to sign up for that kind of mission. It's possible that same kind of propaganda is being used on us, wherever you are, and that you or one of your loved ones could be convinced that it's "the right thing to do".
The Japanese believed that the Emperor is a god and when there's a call to sacrifice themselves it would be considered the greatest honor to die for the Emperor and Japan. Kamikaze pilots are volunteers or voluntold by peer pressure. Commanders often just sign everyone up
@@aslamnurfikri7640 yea much like you see muslims doing it these days. its just bad programming for a not so evolved brain but i guess everyone has there own set of suggestibility
People degraded alot on kamikaze military camp to the point dead is better. It was so inhumane but rarely told in history book.
"Sign up"
The conventional attacks were more suicidal and resulted in more casualties. So a few dying to do the same amount of damage was a grim but rational choice.
these are so depressing but i keep coming back... japanese ww2 is fascinating and batshit
I always wonder if these things are worth it. They seem to cost more lives of the user country than the enemy. With kamikaze, perhaps the success rate was better, because a regular attack would kill a lot of pilots anyway, without producing any results, so what they did actually caused damage. Desperate times...
he who fights and runs away may live to fight another day. Kamikaze strategy was never really effective as it sinply doesnt make sense an isnt effect simply one man to die to small damage an kill few is useless to dive bombing an said pilot being able to continue to be able to fight
More Lost then hits
If it was anything like the Baka Bomb (What the US called the MXY-7 Ohka) after the first attack with them being used the US was ready for them.
That’s what I was thinking too while watching this. I get that the Japanese thought it was noble to sacrifice their people like this and that they were very desperate, but… that’s not even a viable desperation weapon. That’s wasting resources and lives for nothing.
The reason why Japan resorted to kamikaze attacks was that US weaponry became so effective that they are dead anyway
iirc there were also similar devices developed if not employed in europe, with the idea that a crew of 2 would pilot the "torpedo" which was actually a vehicle not a weapon, and attach a payload directly to an enemy ship, then pilot away and detonate the payload, sinking the target covertly. it might be an interesting topic for a video
Actually the Italians used them to great effect, including sinking (In shallow water) HMS Queen Elizebeth, and HMS Maya. Both were raised and repaired, but they got away with it.
There was a black and white movie on the subject, but I forget it's name off the top of my head.
Yes, let's waste the live of service mans who we spent many hour training instead of letting them escape and have a chance to be recovered.
@@dudududu1926 While I agree with you about idiocy of the tactic, you have to ask yourself how much of a chance an unprotected person would have with a 3500lbs warhead going off in the vicinity.
The British also used manned torpedoes of the Chariot class which was based off the Italian Maiale torpedo
They also used the X Class manned torpedo which was used against the Tirpitz
@@cupcake4658 The wikipedia literally said the X class is a midget submarine...
The Japanese during this time was truly insane and, at times, outright evil.
I’m surprised by the existence of the Kaiten. The Imperial Japanese Navy started out WW2 with the best torpedo in the world. The type 93, if I remember correctly, used a cylinder of pure oxygen instead of compressed air for its engine, and got excellent speed AND range, making it a literal SuperWeapon against the allies. The only drawback was that later in the war, the US learned that due to the cylinder of pure oxygen, the store of torpedos on destroyers, for example were horribly flammable, and even a minor hit could blow up a Japanese ship.
On the other hand, the US had the Mark 14, which was SO bad that the submarine commanders wanted to shoot them at the US Navy Bureau of Ordinance. Unfortunately, there was only about a 1% chance if them exploding. 🫢
Johnny, the Mark 14 would make an excellent video, as would the Type 93. 😛🐶
One more suggestion. The US Navy, a few months before Hiroshima and Nagasaki, dropped thousands of mines on Japanese harbors. They say that this was what ended WW2, not the Atomic Bombs.
I've read that the oxygen bubbles created less "wake" than compressed air so they were a lot harder to spot, especially at night.
@@GRHrivnak Yes! I read that too. 🐶
Most people are unaware that torpedos actually use an air breathing, gasoline engine for propulsion. There’s a fuel supply, and a large supply of compressed air so that the engine works. 🤓
What ended WW2 was soviet declaration of war on Japan, nothing to do with any atomic bombings
Japanese was always terrified of soviets after hopeless disparity in ground strength they saw during battle of Khalkhin gol, enough for them to sign non aggression pact on them
They were so afraid of soviets that they refused to attack them even when soviets sent their Siberian army to defend Moscow, leaving far east pretty much undefended
After soviet broke the NAP, was when Japanese realized it was game over
@@구독자500명되면이같은 the japanese only cared if they were situated across the mainland in korea or china, the japanese on the mainland could not care any less about the soviets and they were the ones that held most of the real power on deciding the course of japan because its literally the mainland
overall, constant naval defeats, starvation, lack of supplies and a growingly discontent populace (although not extreme) contributed to japans surrender as much as the atomic bombings did. if you think ONE single cause is the prime factor in the reason for japans surrender you have NO idea of who the japanese really are
@@구독자500명되면이같은this is objectively false.
Japan was not the only country to use manned torpedoes/submarines as Germany also used them, along with the speed boats. In fact the Italians also used attack speed boats. But as with the Germans the Italians were to bail out at last minute.
None of these schemes had the success that was envisioned for them and were nothing more than a sign of how desperate they had become. Interestingly the most successful special unit was the Italian frogmen who managed to successfully sink or damage quite bits of Allied tonnage, including two British Battleships which became flooded while in harbour but were refloated.
The Germans also had Kamikaze pilots. Nobody knows about them because of how poorly they did.
@@rangergxi Yes they did do very poorly but there are several videos on the German Kamikaze attacks here on UA-cam. I think the one reason little is known about them is because the war in Europe was coming to an end and little in the way of records survived.
We know there were attempts to ram American bombers but this was put down to inexperienced German pilots by the USAAF. And its failure to have any effect on the bombers made the Germans curtail these attacks. The other thing was the fact that dwindling fuel supplies meant they could no longer mount the number of attacks needed.
It is also thought that a number of these pilots thought better of it and would when sent on a mission would instead head for the British and American line where they would surrender.
It is interesting that even amongst Luftwaffe pilots little was known about these attacks. I read an account of a Me 162 pilot whose squadron was visited by a group recruiting for these attacks. He was totally surprised by the visit and was against the idea. But did not believe anything ever came of it.I hope you find this extra information useful.
"None of these schemes had the success that was envisioned for them and were nothing more than a sign of how desperate they had become" LOL, tell to the people in malta, Suda, Alexandria, Gibraltar
Edit: oh, you mention that.
Usually lose interest in long videos and end up clicking off them. This however, really wish this was longer. Absolutely loved this video.
Thanks man that's great to hear
@@JohnnyJohnsonEsq Thank you for making these videos. Watched a few now and the way you present information is amazing. Hooked on your content.
I would’ve been terrible at being Japanese in the 1940s
“You want me to what?” followed by “the fxck I am!”
Imperial Japanese navy be like: "Do the heaven shaker for me"
they just recently made a larger version of it, it was very effective in keeping the crew engaged and suffered 5 total losses through testing
You know you lost the war when you're asking people to deliberately pilot a bomb to a target.
Or to act as a human wave against machine guns.
Launched from sub or destoryer -
they were also supposed to be able to be "launched" from shore/harbors, as a last ditch defense of the home island. where they could be hidden, secretly boarded, and swim out to attack landing ships along the coast.
The US in the 1800s designing a submarine: "Ok this design is shit, the entire thing blows up and the crew with it. Scrap this dumb submarine thing and let's just stick to what we have."
Japan in the mid 1900s fishing the design out of a trashcan: "This is genius!!! We must make these for the war effort!"
Very interesting, and very well narrated too, I might add! Keep up the good vids!
Great video as always. Continuing this gloomy thread, have you thought of doing something on the Japanese Ohka? I only know of one movie where it’s featured, the anime “The Cockpit”. Are there others?
I will forsure! Gloomy but interesting...
its just haunting how some troops of ww2 were either 21 or even younger then 20 meaning some of then were only 19 & 18 but suicide torpedo at 17 talk about early sucide.
Brazil had one where the torpedo could eject whilst the pilot himself would hit the target
What if they didn’t tell the pilot they were going to be trapped in there until right before they closed the hatch 😵😱
Kaiten means “Heaven Shaker” in Japanese, is the name of a manned suicide torpedo based on the Type 93 “Long Lance” submarine torpedoes and this weapon contains a high-explosive warhead, which is piloted by a suicide pilot when it drops from a Japanese destroyer and reaches its target (i.e. an oiler ship, a troop transport, a destroyer or an auxiliary ship, mostly Allied) until any ship sinks at the bottom of the sea, sometimes, these suicide torpedoes were defective and ended in stranding at sea when their engines malfunctioned. These were used by the IJN's Special Divine Forces at sea, the other suicide weapon was the Shin'yō suicide boat, which uses a high explosive in their speedboats.
Best thing in your videos that I get knowledge about movies - mostly non-US warmovies - what I have never heard about and anyway wouldn't come across. Thank you Johnny!
Iron Lung: "Interesting"
Those little freaks must have been terrifying to fight against
Excellent find and video Johnny
Italy "So, Japan, how it's going with the torpedoes boats I told you about?"
Japan: "Quite well Italy. But it's really difficult to constantly train new recruit. Especially after all the experienced ones die"
Italy: "Yes, it's- wait? Die? What about the eject mechanism?"
Japan: "What eject mechanism?"
Italy: "....."
Some 80 years later, similar idea to the Kaiten Submarine were built but shoddily made with Carbon fibre and using wireless Logitec controller as the only means to steer.
I have a Type 99 rifle that was sent home from a sailor aboard the USS Marathon. Reading up on the ship, it was attacked by a Kaiten July 22nd 1945 while docked. The kaiten claimed the lives of 13 sailors that I could find. Blew a huge hole in the side of the ship.
Such a sad waste of life. The Japanese had already relied on midget submarines which were effectively suicide missions although not planned that way so this must have been a relatively easy step to take.
Never knew this film existed, thanks mate.
Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is dying horribly.
Nowadays we have Billionaires paying $250,000 a head to ride in something similar.
At the very least. A kamakazi's death would be instant. Even if they were shot down.
In a Kaiten, I can't imagine the terror. If you miss, you drown. If you hit, you blow up.
I saw this movie and my Japanese is good enough to follow the storyline. It is a testament of an entire nation, whose mindset had gone completely "around the bend." Thanks be to God, the Japanese people, Military and Civilian, are not that way any more.
The yanks nuked the crazy out of them
Interesting fact, that landing craft that was sunk by a Kaiten, was actually sunk the very day Japan surrendered.
I remember as a kid the Navy Yard in Washington DC had one of these subs. It was in a separate building called the annex where some cool items where at. One thing I remember about it was I thought it was a first like a regular midget sub like at Pearl Harbor, kinda grim to find out this was a one way trip machine.
I wondered why Motorcycle manufacturers haven’t named a bike “Kaiten” 😆
Amazing video. Thank you.
Great video as always
In our Axis&Allies house rules Kaiten are available to the Japan player if the Allies get within 3 sea zones of the Japanese Home Islands.
Nice i added cruisers and replaced transports with destroyers to my v1 axis&allies rules but i can't do that specific thing cause im missing the american and japanese setup boards. so if anyone knows the setup for japan and/or the U.S.A please reply to this comment.
oh and what were the specific rules? were they just like the rocket attack?
How crazy the Japanese empire was, asking its suns to suicide.
This is nothing compared to the war crimes they committed on to the Chinese and Koreans.
Imagine go back in time and showing those guys that in 40-50 years we will have drones... XD
Neji Hyuuga would be proud.
Interesting how OceanGate commercialized this technology
Imagine telling these ppl that drones will b doing a better job then them in 80 yrs
You can do the rump shaker, huh? The heaven shaker, gimme the heaven shaker, dude.
1:49 "What a dumb design. Who would design a sub that can only be opened from outside. Good thing we have more sense in this time and age"
This is the submarine that I used in Battlestations Pacific it's a suicide submarine that is a torpedo to damage ships
Talked to a vet of the 6th marine division. He said they found a bunch of suicide boats in the northern part of Okinawa
My dear friend, Paddy McDonald, successfully completed several suicide missions.
My father a WW2 vet of the Pacific. Hated the Japanese till the day he died. He used to say even the Nazis didn’t behead POWs.
To remove the provision for the operator to escape...its madness.
Even these things look safer than Oceangate’s Titan
You forgot about the Titan submersible.
At 1 time there were rumors the exclusive Kaiten were behind the sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis...
You mean to tell me people died during training and experimentation involving a suicide weapon? HOW SHOCKING!
Died from causes *other* than the intended death on a successful test
@@itstyler6567 I probably should have guessed that, but it still sounds kind of funny.
Rumors say the hatch was welded shut before the sub was launched to prevent crew from deserting. Sub had no torpedo tube and it had to ram the enemy ship.
hey private, want to strap yourself into this torpedo? yeah no thanks.
Nice video! But "Kaiten (回天)" has nothing to do with "heaven", it means "power capable of saving a desperate situation". It comes from the Chinese set phrase "回天之力" which means "the enormous power which can change the moving direction of the sky". You could see how desperate and crazy the Japanese was.
Fascinating! Any chance that “heaven” was derived from the set phrase you referenced about changing the direction of the “sky”? I know in Hebrew, there are words that mean similar but different things that are sometimes translated as the same word. I could see “sky” being interpreted as “heaven” (although more likely “heavens”) in that regard. Obviously we’re talking vastly different languages here, but it seems like a viable point of confusion in a translation.
Odd that you would confidently assert this when translations are rarely so set in stone.
No clips from USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage?
feels like Japanese weapons are: This, but suicidal
Guessing the rank and file of the Japanese navy really welcomes the recent improvements in AI technology...!
A better translation of kaitan is “turn the fate “ which is a better fitting one in my opinion
Imperial Japan trying to develop a weapon that doesn't involve killing your own soldiers challenge: Impossible.
Adds a new definition to the old term 'going out with a bang'!
It's basically Iron Lung, but in war.
Tune in next week when this dude talks about the ZonderKommano Elbe pilots.
I swear the japanese always find a way to make their men commit suicide
I live near an island where they would be launched from, so the part about operational launch from a submarine only is not totally correct. The island is a solemn memorial to those who gave their lives. A sombre place with the spirits of those young men in every corner.
You take boys from 17-28 years of age, learn them how to operate complex thing like this, and decide not to make emergency hatch so they could direct and abandon this thing right before the impact?! No wonder they lost the war.
On the plus side, it's the quickest way to get a submarine command.
I would definitely take a ball turret vacation over this job.
The training center (secret base) for this weapon was located in Lake Biwa, Japan. The soldiers were treated badly and seemed to have low morale. from Japan！