Observers on the ground reported this aerial intrusion, but did not initiate any special harbour defensive measures. Many mistakenly believed it to be an American floatplane conducting a routine training flight. For the Japanese raiders, it was the latest of a number of reconnaissance flights conducted over Sydney that provided valuable intelligence for an impending surprise attack on the numerous Allied warships anchored in the harbour. Prime targets included the cruisers HMAS Canberra and USS Chicago.
The cruisers USS Chicago (left) and HMAS Canberra (right) were two of the Japanese intended targets.
The next night, 31 May, the Japanese submarine motherships I-27, I-22 and I-24 deployed in an arc formation outside the harbour entrance and each of them released a two-man midget submarine.
The Japanese A type midget submarines carried two torpedo tubes and a crew of two. They displaced 46 tons submerged and were capable of attaining a submerged speed of 19 knots.
The first midget submarine to enter Sydney Harbour was M-27, operated by Lieutenant Kenshi Chuman and Petty Officer Takeshi Omori, at approximately 8:00pm. It had not gone far, however, when the vessel’s propellers became entangled in anti-submarine nets close to the western boom gate. The disturbance in the water caused by the snared submarine was soon observed and subsequently reported, at which time the patrol boats HMAS Yarroma and HMAS Lolita set out to investigate. They were cheated of their prey, however, when the submarine’s crew, realising that they could not free the midget’s propellers, chose a warrior’s death, firing demolition charges that destroyed their craft at 10:37pm and raising a general alarm. [1]
The recovery of the remains of M-27 showing the effect of the demolition charges fired by Lieutenant Chuman.
The second midget submarine, M-24, crewed by Sub Lieutenant Katsuhisa Ban and Petty Officer Mamoru Ashibe, successfully entered the harbour at 9:48pm. Some time later Chicago, lying at the Man-of-War anchorage, sighted the midget’s periscope about 500 yards distant. The cruiser illuminated searchlights and fired shots in the submarine's general direction. However, Chicago’s guns could not be depressed sufficiently, so the gunfire had no discernible effect. Half an hour later, Sub Lieutenant Ban fired two torpedoes at Chicago, both of which missed the intended target. One ran ashore at Garden Island failing to explode, while the second passed under the Dutch submarine K9 striking the sea wall on Garden Island. It exploded on impact beneath the requisitioned Sydney Harbour ferry Kuttabul, which at that time was being used as an RAN depot ship. Kuttabul sank immediately and 21 Allied naval ratings, 19 Australian and two British, were killed.
Left: The requisitioned ferry Kuttabul lying on the seabed following M-24's torpedo attack. Right: Workers sift through the remains of Kuttabul.
Others were badly injured or trapped. Bandsman MN Cumming had boarded Kuttabul only five minutes prior to the explosion and was fortunate to receive only minor cuts from the blast. At first he thought a bomb had hit the ship but instead of heading for the safety of shore, he stripped off and dived repeatedly into the bitterly cold watery wreckage, ignoring shattered glass and jagged woodwork in a frantic search for survivors. He rescued three critically injured shipmates. Ordinary Seaman LT Combers was another who disregarded his own safety to return to the dangerous wreck and save the life of another. [2]
Ban and Ashibe, meanwhile, evaded further detection and their vessel disappeared without trace, not to be seen again until 2006 when recreational divers discovered its wreck off Sydney’s northern beaches.
Although the harbour was alive with activity following the attack on Chicago, confusion reigned, with some believing the gunfire to be part of a naval exercise as ships began to weigh anchor and proceed to sea.
In the early hours of 1 June a third midget submarine, M-22, crewed by Lieutenant Kieu Matsuo and Petty Officer 1st Class Masao Tsuzuku, entered the harbour. It was detected in Taylors Bay, where it was depth charged repeatedly by the patrol boats Sea Mist, Steady Hour and Yarroma. The following day RAN divers were sent to investigate the crippled vessel, finding its engines still running and its contra-rotating propellers slowly turning. When it was subsequently raised, Australian authorities found its two-man crew dead inside from self-inflicted gunshot wounds.
The tracks of the three midget submarines through Sydney Harbour.
The audacious attack by the Japanese midget submarine crews proved to be a sharp wake-up call to Sydneysiders for whom the war had hitherto seemed somewhat distant.
It took several days to recover and account for the 21 ratings that had been killed in Kuttabul. On 3 June 1942, Rear Admiral GC Muirhead-Gould RAN DSC, Flag Officer-in-Charge Sydney, and over 200 Navy personnel attended a burial service conducted with naval honours for those killed in Kuttabul. On 1 January 1943, the naval depot at Garden Island was commissioned as HMAS Kuttabul to further perpetuate the memory of the men killed during the attack.
The RAN also recognised the bravery of the four Japanese submariners recovered from the two submarines destroyed in the harbour. They too were accorded a funeral with naval honours at Rookwood Cemetery, a gesture much appreciated in later years by the Japanese. The cremated remains of the submariners were returned to Japan two months later as part of a diplomatic exchange.
Large parts of the two midget submarines recovered from the seabed of Sydney Harbour were used to construct one composite vessel, which is currently in the collection of the Australian War Memorial, Canberra.
Following their recovery from the harbour, midget submarines M-27 and M-22 were thoroughly examined. Parts of both vessels were later mounted on a trailer, touring Australia to raise war bonds and boost morale. (State Library of Victoria Pictures Collection H98.104-898)
Notes
[1] The naming and numbering convention used on this page to identify each submarine is to use the number of the submarine mothership preceded by the letter ‘M’ - midget. Thus M-27 is the midget submarine carried and launched by I-27.
[2] Peter Grose, A Very Rude Awakening, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2007.