Ex-crew recognizes photos of sunken Japanese battleship

[webfact]

Ex-crew recognizes photos of sunken Japanese battleship
By MARI YAMAGUCHI

TOKYO (AP) — A former crewmember on a Japanese battleship that sank during World War II said Thursday he recognized photos of wreckage discovered this week off the Philippines by a team led by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

Shizuhiko Haraguchi served as a gunnery officer on the Musashi, one of the largest battleships in history, when it was being fitted in Japan before it departed for the Pacific in 1943.

He said he recognized underwater photos taken by Allen's team of a large gun turret and a catapult system used to launch planes.

"I recognized that main turret, which I was assigned to," Haraguchi, 93, said in a telephone interview from his home in Nagasaki in southern Japan where the ship was built, fitted and tested. "I felt very nostalgic when I saw that."

The Musashi had nine 46-centimeter (20-inch) guns, which were each 20 meters (66 feet) long, he said.

Haraguchi said other details released by Allen convinced him that the wreckage was that of the Musashi. He said a round base shown in a photo of the bow was where a chrysanthemum decoration used to be, an Imperial seal that only battleships were allowed to carry.

Allen said his team found the battleship at a depth of 1 kilometer (3,280 feet) in the Sibuyan Sea using an autonomous underwater vehicle following more than eight years of study.

Allen called the Musashi an "engineering marvel" and said he was honored to have found a key ship in naval history.

Historians and military experts praised the apparent discovery of the legendary battleship after 70 years, saying it would help promote interest in World War II studies. A group supporting navy veterans said survivors would want to hold a memorial service at the site.

Haraguchi left the ship just before its departure because he was transferred to an aviation unit in eastern Japan.

The apparent discovery on Sunday of the battleship comes as the world marks the 70th anniversary of the war's end.

The Musashi, commissioned in 1942, sank in October 1944 in the Sibuyan Sea during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, losing about half of its 2,400 crew members. Only a few hundred eventually returned home alive. The ship was repeatedly hit by torpedoes and bombs dropped by planes from Allied aircraft carriers.

The naval battle, considered the largest of World War II, crippled the Imperial fleet, cut off Japanese oil supplies and allowed the U.S. invasion of the Japanese-held Philippines.

"The discovery of the Musashi was really a nice surprise," Haraguchi said. "It was as if the spirits of her crewmembers who sank with her were telling us to remember them for the 70th anniversary."

-- (c) Associated Press 2015-03-06

[boomerangutang]

It's good to hear at least some of the Japanese navy men survived the sinking of the ship. It's not the fighting men who were bad, it's the buttplug leaders who sent them in to battle.

[sunshine51]

My father was a Navy pilot who flew Hellcats and participated in the sinking of the Musashi.

Dad few from the Lexington during the Battle fo Leyte Gulf.

[Neilly]

[Cats4ever]

It's good to hear at least some of the Japanese navy men survived the sinking of the ship. It's not the fighting men who were bad, it's the buttplug leaders who sent them in to battle.

I suspect that your intentions are good, but your facts limited. The Japanese army was ruthless from top to bottom. Nanking, for example. New Guinea, where diggers found their mates tortured and or eaten. Ask Chinese people in Singapore and Malaysia. Ask relatives of people who were given the honour of being executed. Ask the workers on the railway. I am sure that some Japanese were O.K., but they were, at that time, a minority.

[eeworldwide]

I'd like to see the photo too.

[PETERTHEEATER]

She is the sister ship to the Yamamoto also sunk but the main armament of both was 18.1 inch guns not 20 inch and the reporter who wrote this is Japanese!

I should be interested to see the video record taken from the RPV. The Yamamoto Class battleships were the most formidable ships in the world at that time but too late at sea to push back the US advance.

[BadBouy]

It's good to hear at least some of the Japanese navy men survived the sinking of the ship. It's not the fighting men who were bad, it's the buttplug leaders who sent them in to battle.

Japanese army was all about torturing and killing people all over the place, civilians and POW's. Go spout that in China and see what happens.

Current generations of Japan are absolved but those who were adults at that time are accomplices and need to own the responsibility for what was done in the name of their country.

[Srikcir]

Maybe Malaysia Airlines should hire Paul Allen's company to find MH170.

[sunshine51]

She is the sister ship to the Yamamoto also sunk but the main armament of both was 18.1 inch guns not 20 inch and the reporter who wrote this is Japanese!

I should be interested to see the video record taken from the RPV. The Yamamoto Class battleships were the most formidable ships in the world at that time but too late at sea to push back the US advance.

Actually; the battleship class was the Yamato class.Yamamoto was an Admiral in the INF aka Japanese Navy.

Wiki link...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamato-class_battleship

Edited March 7, 2015 by sunshine51

[boomerangutang]

It's good to hear at least some of the Japanese navy men survived the sinking of the ship. It's not the fighting men who were bad, it's the buttplug leaders who sent them in to battle.

I suspect that your intentions are good, but your facts limited. The Japanese army was ruthless from top to bottom. Nanking, for example. New Guinea, where diggers found their mates tortured and or eaten. Ask Chinese people in Singapore and Malaysia. Ask relatives of people who were given the honour of being executed. Ask the workers on the railway. I am sure that some Japanese were O.K., but they were, at that time, a minority.

Japanese army was all about torturing and killing people all over the place, civilians and POW's. Go spout that in China and see what happens.

Current generations of Japan are absolved but those who were adults at that time are accomplices and need to own the responsibility for what was done in the name of their country.

Ok, you're both right, there were sickos galore within Japanese ranks during the war. Here's another way to look at it: war brings out the worst traits in people.

Stories of Nazi and Japanese brutalities during the war are endless. Yet those same men (mostly impressionable age of 18 to 26) would have been regular guys, if not for war. They'd be working at jobs to make money, trying to find pretty girls to marry to have families, etc. Yet by getting sucked in to war, many of them became sadists. It's a reflection what the human psyche is capable of, depending on circumstance. Anyone reading this, when you were at that impressionable age (18 to 26) would have been liable to become a bloodthirsty sadist - in wwII combat or prison-guard or rape & pillage scenario. There's few people who are not a hair's breath from criminal insanity - when immersed in extreme circumstances.

Religious indoctrination, ultra-nationalism, metaphysics, monarchism, hormones, bad parenting, fear, survival instincts, herd-mentality (and more) ....are all contributing factors. I'm not making excuses for anyone, just putting a psychic spin on things.