ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 235766
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| Date: | Saturday 5 May 1945 |
| Time: | 10:06 |
| Type: | Aichi E13A (Jake) |
| Owner/operator: | Imperial Japanese Navy |
| Registration: | |
| MSN: | |
| Fatalities: | Fatalities: 2 / Occupants: 3 |
| Aircraft damage: | Destroyed |
| Location: | south of Bungo-Suido Straits -
 Japan
|
| Phase: | Combat |
| Nature: | Military |
| Departure airport: | |
The morning of May 5, 1945, the submarine USS Atule was lurking south of Bungo-Suido, the strait between the southern Japanese Islands of Shikoku and Kyushu. The Atule was on a "lifeguard" mission, prepared to pick up any U.S. airmen shot down. It surface at 0730 hrs 12 miles south of Okino Shima. At 0759 hrs it dived as a Jake and a Rufe in the area. At 0855 hrs the Atule’s "Dumbo" B-29 that was supposed to cover the sub and help it communicate with other bombers, was sighted and the Atule surfaced again.
At 1000 hrs, the submarine crew spotted two Japanese planes, a Jake and a Rufe, coming toward them. The Atule reported them to the Dumbo B-29 by VHF and dived to periscope depth to watch the show. The Jale passed almost directly overhead. The B-29 crew had gone to Battle Stations Gun Action, and the pilot spun the big bomber around like a fighter and charged into the fray. The Rufe turned and headed back for the home base, while the B-29 engaged the Jake. The fight was short and unequal. The captain of the Atule watched the confrontation, low on the water and less than two miles away, with the periscope and commented it, giving a play-by-play account throught the ship over all communication systems. The bigger, faster, better-armed B-29 wheeled and shot the Japanese plane from the air, ripping it apart with .50-caliber slugs. At 1006 hrs the twisting and weaving Jake was hit, burst into flames aft, and crashed into the sea in a sheet of flame from the exploding bomb and gasoline.
The Atule surfaced at 1009 hrs. The B-29 thanked her for the assist and departed for home. At 1020 hrs the submarine reached the scene of crash and found two of the Japanese crewmen dead, one having been completely decapitated, the third wounded and burned on his face but alive and calling for help. They took him below to an empty torpedo room and gave him a mattress made from spare rags. At first he wouldn’t reveal his name, so the sailors called him Bungo, for the body of water where he crashed. The pharmacist mate on the Atule treated the prisoner’s burns with petroleum jelly and bandages, all that was available. He was suffering from shock, second degree burnes of the face and hands, flesh wounds in the neck and arm, and gunshot or crash wounds in his right ankle.
The Japanese aircraft were Jakes from the Saeki Kokutai. This unit was engaged in patrol missions over the Bungo Straits during the 1944-45 period and also flew over the sea at Okinawa in 1945, based at Ibusuki Seaplane Station as an advance base in Southern Kyushu, losing many planes and aircrews. Two of the crew of the Jake shot down by the B-29 on 5 May, the pilot and gunner, were killed when the plane crashed, but 20-year old Lt Masayoshi Kojima, observer and aircraft captain, was picked up by the sub and captured, being taken to Hawaii and the homeland of USA. Without knowing it, a Navy funeral for the three KIA was celebrated at the Saeki Kokutai.
After a month the Atule returned from duty, and the prisoner was turned over to the Marines at Midway Island. The prisoner was moved to several prison camps, some of which he can’t remember. In January 1946, he was returned to Japan but kept in touch with the pharmacist’s mate who had treated his wounds on the Atule. The daughter of the Atule’s skipper, Jason Mauer, also later tracked him down while teaching in Japan. Kojima became a Rear Admiral in the post-war Japanese Navy. In 1990, he attended a convention of Atule veterans in the United States.
Sources:
http://www.atule.com/may_5_,_1945.htm
http://www.pacificwrecks.com/people/authors/takaki/index.html
USS Atule patrol report, April-May 1945
"Surface and Destroy: The Submarine Gun War in the Pacific", by Michael Sturma. ISBN 978-0-8131-2996-9
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bungo_Channel
http://www.tageo.com/index-e-ja-v-00-d-m363084.htm
Revision history:
| Date/time | Contributor | Updates |
|---|---|---|
| 06-May-2020 10:54 | Laurent Rizzotti | Added |
| 30-Nov-2021 00:19 | Ron Averes | Updated [Operator] |
| 10-Jul-2022 12:16 | Ron Averes | Updated [Aircraft type] |
| 10-Jul-2022 21:44 | Ron Averes | Updated [Aircraft type] |
| 10-Jul-2022 22:32 | Ron Averes | Updated [Aircraft type] |
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