This Japanese Weapon From WWII Is the Stuff of Nightmares

If you are claustrophobic or are scared of drowning, look away

Schematic of a kaiten (Public domain)

The world was horrified to hear of tragic accounts of suicide kamikaze attacks on US Navy vessels at the end of World War II but most people do not know of their ocean-going counterpart the kaiten. Kaiten were manned torpedoes that functioned as the equivalent of an airborne kamikaze but operating underwater. People would crawl into armed tubes and given just enough oxygen to live for but a few moments and gyroscope and launched towards enemy ships.

Between kamikaze planes, hopeless banzai charges, and the kaiten the Japanese zealotry for honorable suicide seems to have few boundaries.

But the kaiten is far more terrifying than the former.

A tiny one-way submersible

A kaiten being launched at sea (Public domain)

Manned torpedoes were not a Japanese invention, they had been used in the Mediterranean for many years. However, the original European manned torpedoes were not suicide devices, they were used for sabotage, reconnaissance, and other similar covert operations but the pilots were always meant to…