Japan's Spy at Pearl Harbor by Takeo Yoshikawa

Author:Takeo Yoshikawa
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Published: 2020-03-10T00:00:00+00:00

27

A Special Submarine

In the previous chapter, I wrote about the “thunderous explosion” I heard at approximately eight o’clock in the evening. This loud noise, I would later learn, involved a special midget submarine.

At the beginning of October 1941, I received a cable from Tokyo that instructed me to “report quickly” on whether or not there was any ­anti-submarine netting in the harbor. To this I provided quite a simple reply: “There may be, but the precise details are unclear.” At the time, I was rather angry about the completely amateurish style of their cables.

According to U.S. Navy regulations, it was absolutely necessary to set up ­anti-submarine netting in those areas where the fleet usually anchored. This had long since been common knowledge. Despite this, at that late stage, Tokyo still needed to ask whether any ­anti-submarine netting was in place. Weren’t they simply asking a question to which they already knew the answer?

At that critical time, I felt it was necessary to collect information about the activities of the fleet and the deployment of aircraft and I was devoting all of my energy to doing just that. However, Tokyo wanted me to report quickly on whether or not ­anti-submarine netting was in place. “Isn’t this a case of not seeing the forest for the trees?” I wondered.

Moreover, ­Lieutenant-Commander Suzuki, the officer who reached Honolulu aboard the Taiyo Maru on 1 November, had put the same question to me on the list of 97 questions.

And I replied:

It is certain that there is netting in place. Submarines apparently pass a control device, which has been installed somewhere near the entrance to the harbor, and it causes the underwater netting to either rise up or drop down. When a submarine is entering the harbor, the netting drops down to the seabed. After the submarine has passed the entrance point, the netting is raised again. However, it is still not clear where this installation is located. As the ­anti-submarine netting is underwater, it is not possible to definitively locate it.

Tokyo sent further instructions by cable not long after that. “Hope that you can do everything possible to provide detailed reports on ­anti-submarine netting and ­anti-torpedo nets.”

Having receiving this cable, I felt that I couldn’t regard the matter as unimportant any longer. As I was certain that Tokyo was trying to plan some sort of operation, I had to get out in the field and investigate things for myself. However, the harbor entrance location at which the ­anti-submarine netting had been placed was undoubtedly within a “restricted zone.” I would need to pass through either Pearl Harbor or Hickam Field if I wanted to get to such a place, and that was extremely dangerous. If I were captured, the secret identity that I had spent so much energy and effort trying to keep hidden would be quickly exposed and all of the intelligence that I had collected bit by bit would suddenly come to naught.

Then it occurred to me that if I went sunbathing and

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