Sunk: The Story of the Japanese Submarine Fleet 1942-1945 by Mochitsura Hashimoto

Book Description

Secondhand. Good condition. Wear to book corners and edges. Pages are sunned. Some foxing marks on foredge. Cloth is worn. Dust jacket is in fair condition with small tears at edges. Stains and marks on both front and back covers.

Mochitsura Hashimoto was one of only four Japanese submarine captains to survive World War II.

Shortly before the end of WW2, he inflicted the greatest single loss on the US Navy in its history, when he torpedoed and sank the USS Indianapolis soon after it had delivered parts for the first A-bomb on Hiroshima to the US base on Tinian!

The title, however, refers to the fate of the Japanese submarine fleet. It's the story of the bravery of doomed men in a lost cause, fighting impossible odds. The kaitens or human torpedoes were not the only submarine kamikazes: the whole war in the Pacific was suicide from the start.

So why did Japan go into the war? Hashimoto is sharply critical of the recklessness and unpreparedness of Japan's top brass.