"I knew that Hawaii would be the place where I would die"

 

Those are the words of Masamitsu Yoshioka, believed to be the last survivor of the Japanese air fleet that attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.  He died recently at the age of 106.

He flew in a Nakajima B5N2, nicknamed “Kate” by the Americans, carrying a single 800kg torpedo [Type 91] modified for shallow water. By the time he arrived at Pearl Harbor just before 08:00, having flown nearly two hours across the Pacific, the surprise attack on the United States Pacific Fleet was well underway, and all was “wrapped in black smoke”, Yoshioka told Jason Morgan of Japan Forward. “There were only two ships that I could clearly see.”

His pilot flew “dead on” at one of the ships, and Yoshioka, who was then 23, deployed his torpedo: “I spotted, out of the corner of my eye, two narrow, white columns of seawater, about two meters in diameter and 30 meters high, exploding up right beside the vessel. Direct hit!” He watched the mast tilt as the ship filled with water.

But it turned out to be the battleship USS Utah, which sank at a cost of 58 lives – needlessly, because the Japanese aircrew had been under strict instructions not to waste time on the Utah, which was only used as a training vessel. Yoshioka only realised his mistake when he noticed that the Utah’s gun turrets did not have barrels.

Masamitsu Yoshioka was born in Ishikawa Prefecture on January 5 1918 and joined the Imperial Japanese Navy in 1936. He started as ground crew, maintaining biplanes, but was accepted for navigator training in 1938, and in 1939 was posted to the aircraft carrier Soryu.

. . .

On November 26 1941 the Soryu left the port of Hitokappu Bay in the far north (now under Russian control). The crew tried to guess their destination: the pipes were still wrapped with asbestos, which suggested a cold-weather environment, but they had also been told to pack shorts.

When Admiral Nagumo, leader of the carrier battle group, announced that they were heading for Hawaii, “the blood rushed out of my head,” Yoshioka recalled. “I knew that this meant a gigantic war and that Hawaii would be the place where I would die.”

. . .

He flew support missions for the attack on Wake Island, also in December 1941, and took part in the Indian Ocean Raid in spring 1942.

The Soryu would be sunk at the Battle of Midway in June 1942, but Yoshioka survived because he was on leave. He then served in the Palau islands but was invalided to the Philippines with malaria before the bloody Battle of Peleliu in 1944. When the kamikaze attacks on the Allied fleets started, there were no parts for the Kates and Yoshioka, grounded, lived to hear the Emperor’s surrender broadcast on the radio.

There's more at the link.

At the time, Americans hated the Japanese for their "sneak attack", and that anti-Japanese racism was a hallmark of the Pacific campaign.  After the war, attitudes mellowed to at least some extent (although some never forgave them).  One hopes we can at least acknowledge the death of a brave man, probably the last of his kind, who did his duty according to his lights.

Peter