Michael Mair

"On April 16, 2001, at 12:10h (local time) at Ulithi Atoll in the Federated States of Micronesia, USS Mississinewa (A)-59), the ghost ship of Ulithi Lagoon, is located. Thus ended an odyssey that began May 18, 1944 when the US Navy tanker was commissioned. Fifty seven year earlier USS Mississinewa had been sunk by Japan's secret weapon. The Japanese kaiten was an underwater craft, designed as a human torpedo and built solely as a suicide weapon. On that Monday morning, Sub-lieutenant Seiko Nishina steered his forty-eight-foot long kaiten into Ulithi lagoon and vowed, "I must not fail ... The emperor will reign 10,000 years!" Nishina's last view was the large numeral 59 on the starboard bow of Mississinewa. Nishina reached for the chout-su handle and the kaiten surged forward. Death was certain now. Duty, honor, patriotism, courage, hope and faith - these words inspired countless members of the twentieth century's 'Greatest generation' who fought for the United States in WWII, the greatest conflict in human history. The author heard the same words from aging Japanese veterans who fought to save Japan from inevitable defeat with a devastating, almost incomprehensible, weapon the Imperial Japanese Navy called kaiten."--Book jacket.

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