KAITEN Japan's Secret Manned Suicide Submarine and the First American Ship It Sank in WWII

Narrator Robertson Dean delivers this detailed and sometimes very personal account of a desperate and deadly Japanese attack on U.S. Forces, which was kept secret by both sides for years. In the early morning hours of November 20, 1944, five manned (kamikaze-style) torpedoes were launched from a Japanese submarine that entered the Ulithi anchorage in the South Pacific Caroline Islands. Only one mini-sub found its target, and the fuel tanker USS MISSISSINEWA and its 146,000 barrels of diesel fuel and aviation gasoline exploded into 200-foot plumes of smoke and flames. Author Michael Mair's father survived the attack. One can hear Dean's voice quaver slightly when he recounts the many acts of individual bravery that resulted in the survival of 236 of the 299 crew members that fateful day. B.P. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine [Published: OCTOBER 2014]