"Kaiten" Kamikaze Submarine

　　On the last day of this trip, the weather was terrible with heavy rain and wind in the mountainous area. We decided to escape from the area to avoid them. I wanted to ride my scooter in Akiyoshidai near there, which is the largest karst tableland in Japan, but the wind was thought to be more hazardous there than where we were.
　　Then, I proposed another plan instead of riding in Akiyoshidai and we decided to drop in at Ohzushima Island, which had been covered with a shroud of secrecy during World War Two. I'm going to write about the island in this entry. The first picture is of the passenger boat connecting the island and Honshu. This tiny island in the Seto Inland Sea was the center of research and development of the MANNED torpedos. Lots of young men were trained as operators of the torpedos. The name of this type of - manned - torpedo is "Kaiten" in the title of this entry. The Kaiten Memorial Facility is built on the island and the second and third pictures were shot in its entrance and approach. The black object is formally called the small submarine, but its activities were always one-way (never come back) and bore huge ammunition. I think that it should be called  the manned torpedo. I'm continuing the same topic in the next entry.







ROUTE
http://kumo.typepad.jp/wadachi/Yamaguchi_Touring_2013_05_31/2013Yamaguchi_Touring.html