FUSETSUKAN!

© 2008-2009 Bob Hackett, Sander Kingsepp and Peter Cundall

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10 March 1941:
Yokohama. Laid down at Mitsubishi Mitsubishi Heavy Industries shipyard and named ISHIZAKI.

13 August 1941:
Launched.

28 February 1942:
Completed. Assigned to the Yokosuka Naval District and attached to the Ominato Naval Guard District.

10 July 1942:
Reassigned to the Fifth Fleet.

14 July 1942:
Departs Ominato.

24 July 1942:
Kiska. ISHIZAKI engages in laying an antisubmarine net .

31 July 1942:
Off Kiska, Aleutians. At 0547, LtCdr Mannert L. Abele's (former CO of USS S-31) USS GRUNION (SS-216), on her first war patrol, torpedoes freighter KANO MARU and gets a hit on the starboard machinery room. Abele fires three more unreliable Mark-14 torpedoes. One runs deep and the others hit, but fail to explode. Abele attempts to surface and sink KANO MARU by gunfire, but an old 8-cm/40 (3-inch) Type 41 gun opens fire on GRUNION's periscope. Her 84th shot hits the conning tower. GRUNION crash dives, but Abele's green crew loses depth control. GRUNION exceeds crush depth, implodes and is lost. [1]

Later, ISHIZAKI, subchaser CH-26 and cable layer UKISHIMA arrive on scene and observe much oil, a piece of lifeguard buoy, submarine deck material and other things.

6 August 1942:
Departs Kiska.

8 August 1942:
Transferred to the Ominato Naval Guard District.

1 September 1942:
Based at Hachinohe, Honshu. Escorts convoys.

15 August 1945:
Arrives at Yokosuka.

30 November 1945:
Arrives at Ominato. That same day, she is removed from the Navy List.

1 December 1945:
Assigned to the Allied Minesweeping Service. Thereafter, engages in minesweeping. [3]

July 1946:
Reassigned as a special storage vessel at Sasebo.

30 September 1947:
Arrives at Sasebo.

1 October 1947:
Ceded to the United States as a war reparation. Later, arrives at Tsingtao (now Qingdao), China for scrapping.

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Author's Notes:
[1] No data were found on ISHIZAKI's movements during 1943-August 1945. Readers with access to such data are requested to post the information on the Discussion and Questions board or j-aircraft.org's IJN Ship Message Board

[2] On 16 Aug 2006, the wreck of GRUNION was found N of McArthur Reef, Kiska by the Abele brothers' expedition. The cause of GRUNION's sinking is based on an Hypothesis Report published on the GRUNION Blog. The hypothesis was developed by experts on the GATO class submarine using pictures of GRUNION's wreck taken by an ROV in 2007.

The characterization of GRUNION's crew as "green" is not meant to be disparaging, but factual. Although LtCdr Abele was a well-experienced submariner, his and other members of his crew's expertise was on earlier "S" type boats, not on the newer GATO type. This was the first patrol on GRUNION for all aboard.

[3] In 1945, the U. S. Army Air Force launched a five-phased campaign known as “Operation Starvation” to mine Japan’s home waters. The USAAF used 80 to 100 B-29 “Super Fortress” heavy bombers of the 21st Bomber Command based at Tinian in the Marianas. The B-29s could carry seven 2,000 lb. or twelve 1,000 lb. mines.

Beginning on 27 March 1945 and continuing until 5 August 1945, the B-29s flew 1,529 nighttime radar sorties and laid 4,900 magnetic, 3,500 acoustic, 2,900 pressure and 700 low-frequency mines for a total of more than 12,000 mines laid in Japanese waters. These mines sank 294 ships, damaged 137 beyond repair and damaged another 239 that could be repaired. The total was 1, 250,000 tons sunk or damaged or about 75 percent of Japanese shipping available in March 1945. Only 15 B-29s were lost during the mining campaign.

Postwar, removal of these mines posed a major challenge for the Allied Occupation Forces. They pressed 269 Japanese ships of various types into mine sweeping service to augment their own efforts.

-Bob Hackett, Sander Kingsepp and Peter Cundall.

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