44th Shin'yō Squadron Accident Victims Monument
Setouchi Town, Kagoshima Prefecture
The 44th Shin'yō Special Attack Squadron with 50 shin'yō explosive motorboats
was stationed at Kuji Bay in the south of Amami Ōshima, an island about 130
miles north of Okinawa. During one morning in June 1945, there were two
explosions in a shin'yō storage tunnel that killed 13 men, including Squadron Leader Miki.
In November 1955, a small monument next to the tunnel where the explosions
occurred was erected by Japan's Ministry of Health and Welfare to remember the
13 victims from the accidental explosions. The monument's front has engraved the
words "Shin'yō Squadron Accident Victims Monument," which are now difficult to
read with the passage of several decades since the monument's erection. The
monument is located west of the village of Kuji and is about a 20-minute walk
from the road along a rocky beach.
The 44th Shin'yō Special Attack Squadron at Kuji Bay had 178 total members
including 6 officers, 50 shin'yō motorboat pilots, 29 maintenance workers, 21
headquarters personnel, and 72 other base workers. The squadron had 55 one-man
Model 1 shin'yō motorboats loaded with explosives for suicide attacks to crash
into enemy ships.
The squadron's shin'yō motorboat pilots were from the 20th Otsu Class of the Navy's
Yokaren (Preparatory Flight Training Program) at Mie Naval Air
Group. They were selected in November 1944 from volunteers for pilots of a new
weapon. The shin'yō motorboat pilots received their training at Kawatana Torpedo Boat Training
School in Nagasaki Prefecture. The 44th Shin'yō Special Attack Squadron was
formed on January 25, 1945.
The shin'yō pilots arrived at the Kuji Bay base on March 8, 1945. The
shin'yō motorboats were hidden in several tunnels that were dug into the base
of the mountain next to the bay. A spark apparently caused the explosion in June
1945 in one of the tunnels. Squadron Leader Miki was not there when the first
explosion occurred, but he came running to the tunnel to find out what happened,
but he was killed in the second explosion.
The 44th Shin'yō Squadron pilots ended the war without ever making a suicide
sortie against enemy ships.
View toward Kakeroma Island [1] from Kuji Bay near the
44th Shin'yō Squadron Accident Victims Monument
Very little remains of the tunnels that used to hide the
shin'yō
motorboats. Most are hidden in the underbrush. Below is one of the remaining
tunnels that is mostly filled with rocks.
Shin'yō storage tunnel next to Kuji Bay
The historical information on this web page about the 44th Shin'yō Special
Attack Squadron is from pages 94-5 (written by Masao Iimura, former 44th Shin'yō
Squadron crewman) of the following book:
Shin'yō Association (Shin'yōkai), ed. 1990. Ningen heiki:
Shin'yō tokubetsu kōgekitai (Human weapon: Shin'yō Special Attack
Corps). Shirō Arai, general editor. Volume 2 of 2. Tōkyō: Kokushokankōkai.
Note
1. Kakeroma Island was the base for the 18th
Shin'yō
Special Attack Squadron. The Toshio Shimao Literature
Monument was erected there in honor of the squadron's commander. |
