“A look at the organization and methods of the kamikaze units shows why the Devilfish incident was considered so unusual in the history of kamikaze attacks during World War Two.”

By Nathaniel Patch

THE IMAGE OF desperate Japanese pilots purposely flying their planes into American warships in the closing months of World War II figures prominently in American popular culture.

When most people hear the term kamikaze, they think of swarms of planes flying through a torrent of antiaircraft fire and plowing into the decks of aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers and destroyers, taking the lives of sailors and damaging or sinking the ships in this desperate act. Out of the hundreds of these attacks, one was quite unusual: the only kamikaze attack on an American submarine, USS Devilfish (SS 292).

The story begins in the afternoon of March 20, 1945, when the Devilfish, under the command of Lt. Cmdr. Stephen S. Mann, was starting her second war patrol. The submarine was cruising on the surface west of Iwo Jima, heading toward the rotating patrol area called the “Hit Parade” between Tokyo Bay and the Northern Nanpo Islands.

At 4:45 p.m. local time, lookouts spotted a Japanese plane five miles astern. The submarine rigged for a crash dive to avoid attack from bombs or depth charges. After passing a depth of 50 feet, the submarine shuddered from an explosion from what the vessel’s war report called a “light bomb.” Moments later, water began to rush into the conning tower from under the radar mast.

Submarines are strange vessels. They are built to withstand hundreds of tons of water pressure closing in around them when submerged, but they are not armoured like surface ships; bombs and gunfire can easily damage them. An explosion, either on or near a submerged submarine, can break the tension of the vessel’s structural integrity triggering a cascading failure that will cause the submarine to implode.

The officers and crew in the control room took quick action to prevent the submarine from sinking. They levelled off at 80 feet and after getting the flooding under control, the officers began to assess the situation on the surface. Much to their surprise, they could raise the No. 1 periscope, but they could not see through it. They then tried the No. 2 periscope; it could not even be raised. But with an enemy plane still possibly in the area, they would have to wait until darkness to surface in order to evaluate the damage.

Later, under the cover of night, the submarine surfaced and the crew discovered extensive damage. What surprised them most was aircraft debris strewn across the deck— they had not been hit by a bomb but by a “suicide plane.”

The Devilfish’s war patrol report described the damage:

Draped across the shears were several pieces of aluminum which appeared to be parts of a planes wing section. On the cigarette deck was found a piece of aluminum fairing, mounting a piece of tubing which looked like a section of a planes landing gear. Closer examination revealed Japanese symbols on some of the pieces. A name plate in Japanese was also found. It never occurred to us that we had been the victims of a suicide attack until after we had surfaced.

The kamikaze plane had sheared off the SD and SJ RADAR masts, punched an eight-inch hole in the periscope shears, destroyed the APR and VHF antennas and the underwater radio loop and distorted the upper periscope bearings. Because of the extensive damage, Commander Mann decided to abort the war patrol and head back to Saipan for repairs.

Out of the ordinary

A look at the organization and methods of the kamikaze units shows why the Devilfish incident was considered so unusual in the history of kamikaze attacks during World War Two.

The kamikaze appeared in the last year of the war as Allied forces began to encroach on the home islands of Japan. By the end of 1944, the loss of the Mariana and Caroline islands and the invasion of the Philippines earlier in the year had pushed back the boundaries of the Japanese Empire. With the shortage of veteran combat pilots and the need to pursue the defense of Japan at all costs, the Japanese Naval Air Command modernized an old tactic.

The concept of fighting to the last man was not uncharacteristic for the Japanese. Making such a stand was a common theme in stories of samurai faced with insurmountable odds, and the Japanese had already begun to use last-resort banzai charges in their defense of their island territories in the Marshalls and Gilberts by pushing the American invaders into the sea. A Japanese soldier, sailor, or pilot understood that sacrificing his life was a way to pay his debt to the emperor. He did not consider such a death as throwing away a life, but fulfilling a duty.

The first organized kamikaze attack took place on Oct. 25, 1944, when Lt. Yukio Seki of the 201st Air Group commanded the first group of five tokko, or Special Attack Corps units, against the American fleet at Leyte Gulf. In all, four groups in all were launched from bases in the Philippines to attack the numerically superior American aircraft carriers. Catching the Americans by surprise, the tokko planes were able to damage and sink a few ships, but most of the damage was psychological: the United States had never fought an enemy willing to commit young lives in a momentary action of destruction.

U.S. forces prepare For kamikaze attacks

The technique of taiatari, or “body­crashing,” was not unheard of. Both sides used this as a last resort when a plane was damaged beyond its ability to return safely to base. A pilot could choose to either ditch the plane into the water with a hope of being recovered or make a final gesture by ramming his aircraft into an enemy ship or facility.

Taiatari, as a purposeful act, became popular during the B-29 raids over Japan when defending fighters, unable to shoot down the heavy bombers, attacked them with their planes. Again, body-crashing the plane was up to the pilot, and there was still the possibility of surviving. During a B-29 raid on August 20, 1944, two pilots made the ultimate sacrifice, Sgt. 1st Class Shigeo Nobe and Corp. Denzo Takagi. When they failed to shoot down the lead B-29 in the conventional way, they crashed their plane into the Superfortess. Both planes were engulfed in a huge fireball, and all crew members perished. The Japanese papers praised the pilots and began to cultivate the mystique of the kamikaze by connecting taiatari with the deification of the suicide pilots’ souls in the Yasukuni Shrine, the temple where the emperor worshipped.

The initial name for the Tokko Corps was the Shimpu Special Attack Corps, but American code-breakers translated the kanji for Shimpu as kamikaze, meaning “divine wind,” the timely typhoons that disrupted the Mongol invasions. The name kamikaze stuck and became imbedded in American culture as a fearful opponent.

For Japan, the kamikaze tactics were a numbers game: the greater number of planes they could commit to taiatari, the more chances they had for successful strikes.

During the Philippine campaign, the Japanese got away with small kamikaze raids largely because the Americans were unprepared for the tactic. As the campaign continued, the U.S. forces adapted their defenses, shooting down more kamikazes than could strike their targets. The Americans had increased their fighter protection, developed new anti-aircraft ordnance with proximity fuses and employed longer range radar, which gave them earlier warning of incoming sorties. As American defenses adapted to suicide planes and as their forces advanced toward the home islands, the number of kamikaze sorties increased.

Training for Japanese pilots was shortened

How did kamikaze pilots differ from the pilots who flew at the start of the war?

At the beginning of war, the Japanese military estimated that pilots needed 500 hours of flight experience to be prepared for combat missions. In 1941, Japanese naval combat pilots had an aver­ age of 700 hours of flight experience, and army combat pilots had an average of 500 hours.

By 1944, the average hours of flight training had dipped to 300 for the Japanese navy and 200 for the army. By comparison, the tokko tai pilots received 40 to 50 hours of flight training. Kamikaze pilots were trained for approximately seven days. In the first few days they learned to take off. In the following days, they learned to fly in formation; the last days were devoted to study and practice in how to attack a target.

Pilots who flew missions early in the Special Attack Corps’ history had more experience than their successors. As the war progressed, the number of hours for flight training was reduced, and the time to teach rudimentary piloting skills like navigation was curtailed.

One of the key elements in flying combat missions is to reach the target, but with only a tenth of the amount of training, how accurate would new pilots be in navigating and locating targets on the open ocean? Getting lost after being separated from the group was likely.

Because kamikaze units were only to fly their planes into ships and not to engage in aerial combat, the Special Attack Corps planners devised a creative solution for getting the planes to the target and defending them at the same time.

Groups of Mitsubishi A6M Zeros were assigned to escort the suicide formations. The pilots of these escorts were more experienced combat veterans and could navigate to and from the target areas. The kamikazes would play follow the leader to the target and then engage the American ships once they were in sight. The escorts brought back word of the kamikazes’ success.

Why was the Devilfish attacker alone?

If the rationale behind kamikaze sorties was to increase the number of planes attacking American aircraft carrier task forces, why would a single Japanese plane in 1945 attack an American submarine? Where were the other planes? Were there larger kamikaze operations taking place on March 20, 1945 that might explain where the lone plane that struck the Devilfish came from?

The time and place of the attack on the submarine provides some clues. The Devilfish was close to Iwo Jima, but would the kamikaze attack a month after the landings? By March 20, 1945, Japanese forces on Iwo Jima were all but defeated, yet there was still a small pocket of resistance in the northeast part of the island. Still, it seems unlikely that the Japanese would commit kamikazes to the remaining defenders.

On Feb. 21, 1945, during the American landings on Iwo Jima, the Japanese had used 32 kamikazes, but there were no other such attacks related to Iwo Jima after that date.

The next major American action was Operation Iceberg, the invasion of Okinawa, planned for April 1, 1945. It had become standard practice for the U.S. Navy to conduct preliminary strikes into areas they were planning to invade. Because Iceberg was hitting so close to the Japanese home islands, the U.S. Navy expected that air bases in southern Japan would lend support to repel any invasion of Okinawa. Were there any carrier strikes against southern Japan on March 20, 1945, that might have attracted kamikazes?

The answer is yes. Beginning March 18, 1945, the carrier group Task Force 58 struck against southern Japan, attacking airfields on Shikoku, Kyushu, and southern Honshu in preparation for the invasion of Okinawa. The task force was attacking air bases to prevent the Japanese from providing air cover for the defense of the island forces or sending kamikazes to the amphibious force landing on Okinawa. In turn, it suffered many kamikaze attacks.

The American destroyer USS Halsey Powell (DD 686), part of the screening force for Task Force Group 58.2, was struck at 2:55 p.m. on March 20. The kamikaze sortie included 20 Yokosuka Suisei D4Y3/D4Y4 bombers (also called Judys) from Kokubu and Oita in southern Kyushu. The kamikaze escorts claimed that the attack was successful, damaging an Essex-class carrier and setting a Saratoga-class carrier afire. In truth, only the Halsey Powell and the Devilfish were struck that day.

U.S. carrier and destroyer attacked by enemy planes

On the day the carrier and the submarine were hit, the task force’s combat air patrol (CAP) encountered several enemy aircraft approaching the formation. Between 10:30 a.m. and 2:50 p.m., the planes from the different aircraft carriers successfully kept enemy aircraft at bay until a single plane broke through. The destroyer Halsey Powell was moored to the aircraft carrier USS Hancock (CV 13) and receiving fuel. When the approach of the enemy plane was reported, the destroyer disconnected from the aircraft carrier. Within moments of breaking the connection, the aircraft carrier and other ships lit into the kamikaze and set it ablaze. The damaged plane went into a roll and flew across the deck of the Hancock, missing the carrier. But after clearing the Hancock, the hapless plane careened into the fantail of the Halsey Powell just aft of the number five gun. A gasoline fire broke out in the living and the steerage control compartments. With the steerage damaged, the destroyer lost the ability to maneuver properly. The casualties of the Halsey Powell included seven killed in action, four missing and 27 wounded. Despite this, the crew managed to steer the destroyer away from the other ships to avoid a collision.

About an hour later, a second wave of enemy planes was sighted in the northwest. Several attempted suicide runs or tricked Allied vessels into firing at each other by flying so low that anti-aircraft fire became friendly fire. No other ships were badly damaged after the Halsey Powell, although the USS Enterprise had a few fires on the flight deck caused by friendly fire.

The distance between the destroyer and the submarine at the time of the attack on the Devilfish was approximately 382.5 standard miles (332.4 nautical miles). Because the Devilfish was heading east toward Japan and the Halsey Powell was conducting operations near Japan, the distance between the two ships would be getting shorter throughout the day. Was the lone kamikaze part of the group that attacked the Halsey Powell and the carrier group? If it was, then it seems it had a long way to travel.

Was there enough time for a kamikaze from the tokko raid to fly from Task Force 58 to the Devilfish? According to the Halsey Powell’s deck log and war diary, the ship was attacked at 2:55 p.m. According to the Devilfish’s deck log and war patrol report, the submarine was attacked at 4:45 p.m., nearly two hours later.

Was a Judy capable of attacking the Devilfish—if that Judy had gotten lost or separated from group attacking Task Force 58? Yokosuka Suisei (Judys) were single-engine, two-seater dive bombers that were originally designed for aircraft carrier operations. Later models D4Y3 and D4Y4 of the Judy were improved with radial engines for greater speed and range, and their bomb capacity was increased, making them ideal for later kamikaze missions. Judys had been used in kamikaze attacks since Oct. 15, 1944, when Rear Adm. Masafumi Arima flew a Judy into the USS Franklin (CV 13) near the Philippines.

Judys had an operational range of about 910 to 920 standard miles for a maximum range of 1,796 standard miles. Their maximum speed was 342 to 357 miles an hour, but their cruising speed was around 207 to 265 miles an hour.

At cruising speed, the Judy could have flown 372.6 miles in nearly two hours. This distance is well within the estimated distance of the two American vessels’ noon positions and within operational range even for the late afternoon estimate of 382 miles. One of the planes from the Japanese attack group could have flown from the vicinity of the Halsey Powell to the Devilfish. But why would a kamikaze attack a submarine?

Unfortunately, we can never know the answer or even be sure that it was a kamikaze plane at all. It is, however, believable that a lone kamikaze could become separated from his group. Japan’s suicide pilots had far less training than even a beginner combat pilot.

Because kamikaze units had armed escorts with experienced pilots to guide and protect them, there was no real need to teach the pilots navigation. The kamikaze pilots depended on their escorts for navigation until they had the enemy fleet in sight. Their lack of combat training and aerial navigation lends support to a scenario in which a kamikaze pilot from the tokko group attacking Task Force 58 on March 20, 1945, could have gotten lost and attacked the Devilfish.

In this case, it is unlikely that the pilot could have navigated back to the group or to the target area. The pilot may have been lost and disoriented, with little time left as fuel was running out. It is possible he happened to see a wake of ship in the distance and decided that any target was better than none. This might have been the situation with the attack on the Devilfish. It might have been sheer chance. The submarine became a target of opportunity, in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The story of the Devilfish ends with her sailing to Pearl Harbor for a more thorough repair. Strangely, this incident does not even count as a full war patrol because the Devilfish was damaged before getting to her patrol area. But it did earn the Devilfish and her crew the coveted Submarine Combat Insignia pin, which can only be awarded for successful encounters with the enemy.

Force Commander Adm. Merrill Comstock, in his endorsement of the second war patrol report, wrote in a half-joking tone, “While the Force Commander does not recommend this method of destroying enemy planes, he does congratulate the DEVILFISH for the destruction of an enemy plane and the courageous actions of all hands in handling the battle damage.”

Nathaniel Patch has worked at the National Archives for nearly 20 years. He started at the National Archives Building in Washington, DC and then moved to the National Archives at College Park, MD to join the Navy Reference Team as an archives specialist. While working, he earned a Master’s degree in Naval History from American Military University. He was promoted first to archivist and then to Subject Matter Expert for Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard topics. He has spoken and written extensively on a wide range of topics including: naval warfare (specifically submarine warfare), US-Japanese relations before and during World War II; using World War I and World War II Navy records for genealogy; the Battle of Midway; and archival research for Underwater Archaeology.