Secret instructions were sent to the largest shipyard in Japan. Millions of board feet of wood came from the forest reserves, and thousands of carpenters were employed to build a gigantic yard. Houses for 50,000 people were requisitioned and these, too, were fenced in around the fenced Navy Yard. Finally, one day in 1940, an order was issued from the Commandant’s office: “From this date henceforth no one leaves the Navy Yard.” And so was born the battleship Shinano.
By the summer of 1942 she was not quite half finished. This super-battleship with two sisters Yamato and Musashi, was bigger than any war vessel ever before constructed in the history of the world. Bigger than Bismarck, the German behemoth of 50,000 tons. Almost three times as big as Oklahoma, lying bottom up in the mud and ooze of Pearl Harbor. Armor plate twenty inches thick. Engines of 200,000 horsepower. Guns throwing projectiles eighteen inches in diameter.
Then at the Battle of Midway, in June, 1942, the flower of the Japanese naval air force met destruction. Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, and Hiryu—all first-line carriers — were sunk. The attack on Midway was turned back, a complete failure. The Naval Ministry met again in secret session, and decided that completion of new aircraft carriers was paramount. So Shinano was redesigned. Some of the tremendous armor plate was removed from her side. Her huge barbettes, turrets, and eighteen-inch guns were never installed, and the weight thus saved was put into an armored flight deck made of hardened steel four inches thick. Under this flight deck were built two hangar decks, and below them another armored deck, eight inches thick. She was capable of storing 100 to 150 planes, and could land them and take them off simultaneously from an airfield nearly one thousand feet in length and 130 feet in width.
But all this took time, and as 1944 drew to a close, the need of the Japanese Navy for its new super carrier became increasingly acute. Finally, in November, 1944, Shinano was nearly completed. The commissioning ceremonies were held on November 18; a picture of the Emperor in an ornate gilded frame was ceremoniously delivered to the vessel, and she was turned over to her commanding officer.
Then the bad news arrived. Japanese strategic intelligence reports indicated that air raids on the Tokyo area would become increasingly severe, with a good possibility that the brave new ship would be seriously exposed at her fitting-out dock. There was even a possibility that United States Forces would discover the existence of the huge vessel and make a special effort to destroy her before she could get to sea. This could not be permitted. The Tokyo area was too vulnerable. The ship must be moved to the Inland Sea.
Now the Inland Sea is the body of water formed between the islands of Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu. It has three entrances: two, the Bungo and Kii Suidos, into the Pacific, and one, Shimonoseki Strait, into the landlocked Sea of Japan. It is an ideal operating base for an inferior navy which must depend upon being able to hide when it cannot fight.
But Shinano is not ready to go to sea. True, she is structurally complete, her engines can operate, and she floats, but she is not quite ready. Her watertight integrity has not been proved. Air tests have been made of only a few of her hundreds of compartments. Many holes through various bulkheads have not yet been plugged. Watertight doors have not been tested, and it is not known whether they can be closed; furthermore, even if they can be closed, no one knows if they are actually watertight. Electrical wiring and piping passing through watertight bulkheads have not had their packing glands set up and tested. Cable and pipe conduits from the main deck into the bowels of the ship have not been sealed. The pumping and drainage system is not complete; piping is not all connected. The fire main cannot be used because the necessary pumps have not been delivered.
Most important of all, the crew has been on board for only one month. They number 1,900 souls, but few have been to sea together. Many have never been to sea at all, and none have had any training whatsoever on board Shinano. They do not know their ship. They are not a crew. They are 1,900 people.
But it is decided, nonetheless, that Shinano must sail to safer waters immediately. To do so she must pass out of Tokyo Bay, steer south and west around the southeastern tip of Honshu, and enter the Kii Suido, a trip of only a few hundred miles. But about half the trip will be in waters accessible to United States submarines. That risk she must take. Give her an escort of four destroyers, and send her at high speed so that the submarines cannot catch her. Make the move in absolute secrecy, so that there will be no possibility of an unfortunate leak of information.
The die was cast, and on the afternoon of November 28, 1944, Shinano set sail with her four escorting destroyers. Sailors and workmen crowded about her decks, and the gilded frame glittered in the late afternoon sunlight on the flying bridge. From within the frame, the image of the Son of Heaven beamed happily on this mightiest of warships.
Thus was set the stage for the greatest catastrophe yet to befall the hapless Japanese Navy. Work for four years building the biggest ship of its kind that has ever been constructed by man; put 1,900 men on board; install a picture of the Emperor on the bridge, and send her out through a few miles of water exposed to possible operations of American submarines.
There was nothing particularly portentous about the laying of the keel of Archerfish. She displaced 1,500 tons, or one-fiftieth the tonnage of the huge vessel fated to be her adversary. She was only one third the length of Shinano, and her crew of eighty-two men and officers was about one fortieth of the 3,200 estimated full designed complement of the Japanese ship.
Leaving New London, Archerfish zigzags southward through the center of the broad Atlantic, in waters infested by her enemy sisters. Do not think that a submarine is not afraid of other submarines. We are probably more afraid of them and more respectful of them than any other type of vessel would be. A submarine cruising on the surface is a delicious morsel. It almost always travels alone, and its only defense is its own vigilance. Zigzag all day and even at night, if the visibility is fairly good. Keep a sharp lookout and radar watch. Tell yourselves over and over again, “Boys, don’t relax. We are playing for keeps now.”
The weather becomes perceptibly warmer. Finally, land is sighted, and Archerfish slips through the Mona Passage into the Caribbean Sea. Here the waters are even more infested with German submarines than are the wide reaches of the central Atlantic. Archerfish puts on full speed and dashes across the Caribbean to Cristobal, at the Atlantic end of the Panama Canal. She arrives early in the morning and proceeds immediately through the great locks, and through Gatun Lake to the submarine base at Balboa on the Pacific end of the Canal.
No danger here from German subs. No time, either, for any rest for the tired crew, for they have lost the edge from their training and must be brought back “on the step” again. One week is all that is available. Archerfish is issued nine practice torpedoes, and fires them again and again. Target convoys are provided. Day and night exercises are conducted. Rarely does the crew turn in before midnight, and all hands are always up at 0500. Archerfish does not even stop for lunch, but instead distributes sandwiches to all members of the crew, making up for it with a good breakfast and a good dinner.
One week of this; then, her crew once again in fine fettle, Archerfish sails across the broad Pacific, on the final and longest leg of her journey to Pearl Harbor. She and her crew have had a pretty steady go of it. They have been training strenuously and incessantly for the past two months with practically no rest, but they cannot be allowed to relax.