Australian War Memorial Treloar Centre, Canberra, Australia
End 1943 started the tide of the Second World War to turn against Japan and became suicide craft like aircraft and submarines but also boats real options. March 1944 started the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal with building of so called shinyo suicide boats on 27 May already so far complete that testing became possible. Lacking steel was chosen to built further of wood. On 1 August begun the training of 150 men. There were between April 1944-1945 of the 11,300 planned boats actually 6,197 divided over the types 1 (1.33 long tons, speed 26 knots, 1 men) and 5 (2.2 long tons, speed 30 knots, 2 men) built and serving in the remaining war years. In the bow was a Type 98 high explosive charge weighing 270 kg mounted. Intention was to ram an Allied ship followed by an explosion which hopefully sunk the ship or at least badly damaged it. In October 1945 captured the Bathurst-class corvette HMAS Deloraine at Sandakan Harbour, British North Borneo such boat (No. 121), taken with her when she returned to Australia and at some point gifted to the Australian War Memorial.
No comments:
Post a Comment