Koizumi Nanasake
Captain, Japanese Freighter Kobayashi Maru
13th October 1944
The Americans are like demons. How else could they be shrugging off the constant defeats dealt to them by our Navy? How else could they possibly sink so much of our shipping? I’ve been to America, I know that they are most certainly not demons. Therefore the fault, as it is becoming increasingly apparent to me, is with our own leadership.
We didn’t begin convoying till early this year, but by then we had already suffered catastrophic losses in terms of merchant shipping sunk. I suppose everyone was expecting the sinking rate to be something closer to that of 1942, but even then the Americans were sinking more ships than we were building. And our convoy escorts aren’t all that effective either. Just last month, despite heavy escort, the Azusa, one of our last few tankers, was sunk by an American submarine.
Japan needs more resources before it can build more merchants and escorts, but at the same time we don’t have enough merchant ships to bring those resources to Japan. Most of us had already been requisitioned by the Army and Navy anyway. And from what I heard from some of the other merchant captains, most of them dead now, there was nearly no organization at all in transporting those hard fought for materials back home. Two of them even mentioned passing by each other, heading to the port that the other left, while empty. Each was sent to pick up supplies from the other port, something that could have been done by a just one of them in half the time.
We certainly don’t have that sort of luxury anymore. We are currently on a resupply run to the Navy’s island bases, and we just departed Iwo Jima a few days ago. I can’t forget the Army doctor pleading with me for just a few more sacks of rice for his troops. While they weren’t dying of starvation just yet, many of them were suffering from diseases due to malnutrition. I sympathized, but my orders are very clear on how much to deliver. It’s bad everywhere anyway. In any case, our next stop is
[Record Ends]
No comments:
Post a Comment