Attack on Sydney Harbour
Encyclopedia
In late May and early June 1942, during World War II, submarines belonging to the Imperial Japanese Navy
made a series of attacks on the cities of Sydney
and Newcastle
in New South Wales
, Australia. On the night of 31 May/1 June, three Ko-hyoteki-class
midget submarine
s, each with a two-member crew, entered Sydney Harbour, avoided the partially constructed Sydney Harbour anti-submarine boom net, and attempted to sink Allied warships. After being detected and attacked, the crews of two of the midget submarines scuttled their boats and committed suicide without successfully engaging Allied vessels. These submarines were later recovered by the Allies. The third submarine attempted to torpedo the heavy cruiser , but instead sank the converted ferry HMAS Kuttabul
, killing 21 sailors. This midget submarine's fate was unknown until 2006, when amateur scuba divers discovered the wreck off Sydney's northern beaches
.
Immediately following the raid, the five Japanese fleet submarines that carried the midget submarines to Australia embarked on a campaign to disrupt merchant shipping in eastern Australian waters. Over the next month, the submarines attacked at least seven merchant vessels, sinking three ships and killing 50 sailors. During this period, between midnight and 02:30 on 8 June, two of the submarines bombarded the ports of Sydney and Newcastle.
The midget submarine attacks and subsequent bombardments are among the best-known examples of Axis naval activity in Australian waters
during World War II, and are the only occasion in history when either city has come under attack. The physical effects were minimal: the Japanese had intended to destroy several major warships, but sank only an unarmed depot ship, caused minimal damage to Allied shipping, and failed to damage any significant targets during the bombardments. The main impact was psychological; creating popular fear of an impending Japanese invasion and forcing the Australian military to upgrade defences, including the commencement of convoy operations to protect merchant shipping.
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originally intended to use six submarines in the attack on Sydney Harbour: B1-type
submarines , , , and , and C1-type submarines and . The six submarines made up the Eastern Attack Group of the 8th Submarine Squadron, under the command of Captain Hankyu Sasaki.
On 8 June 1942, I-21 and I-29—each carrying a Yokosuka E14Y
1 "Glen" floatplane
for aerial reconnaissance—scouted various Australasia
n harbours to select the ones most vulnerable to attack by midget submarines. I-21 scouted Nouméa in New Caledonia
, Suva in Fiji
, then Auckland in New Zealand
, while I-29 went to Sydney in Australia.
On 11 May, I-22, I-24, I-27, and I-28 were ordered to proceed to the Japanese naval base at Truk Lagoon
, in the Caroline Islands
, to each receive a Ko-hyoteki-class midget submarine
. I-28 failed to reach Truk; she was torpedoed on the surface by the U.S. submarine on 17 May. The three remaining submarines left Truk around 20 May for a point south of the Solomon Islands
. I-24 was forced to return a day later when an explosion in her midget submarine's battery compartment killed the midget's navigator and injured the commander. The midget submarine intended for I-28 replaced the damaged midget.
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The Naval Officer-in-Charge of Sydney Harbour at the time of the attack was Rear Admiral
Gerard Muirhead-Gould
of the Royal Navy. On the night of the attack, three major vessels were present in Sydney Harbour; the heavy cruiser
s and , and the light cruiser
. Other warships in the harbour included: destroyer tender , auxiliary minelayer , corvettes , , and , armed merchant cruisers and , and Dutch submarine K-IX
. A converted ferry—HMAS Kuttabul—was alongside at Garden Island where she served as a temporary barracks for sailors transferring between ships. The hospital ship Oranje was also in the harbour, but departed an hour before the attack.
consisted of eight anti-submarine indicator loop
s — six outside the harbour, one between North Head and South Head, and one between South Head and Middle Head, as well as the partially constructed Sydney Harbour anti-submarine boom net between George's Head on Middle Head and Green Point on Inner South Head. The central section of the net was complete and support piles were in place to the west, but 400 m (1,312.3 ft) wide gaps remained on either side. Material shortages prevented the completion of the boom net prior to the attack. On the day of the attack, the six outer indicator loops were inactive; two were not functioning and there were not enough trained personnel to man both the inner and outer loop monitoring stations. The North Head – South Head indicator loop had been giving faulty signals since early 1940, and as civilian traffic regularly passed over the loop, readings were often ignored.
Harbour defence craft included the anti-submarine vessels HMAS Yandra and Bingera; the auxiliary minesweepers HMAS Goonambee and Samuel Benbow; pleasure launches
converted to channel patrol boats (and armed with depth charge
s), namely HMAS Yarroma, Lolita, Steady Hour, Sea Mist, Marlean, and Toomaree; and four unarmed auxiliary patrol boats.
The Japanese navy used five Ko-hyoteki-class midget submarine
s in an unsuccessful operation against U.S. battleships during the attack on Pearl Harbor
. The navy hoped that upgrades to the submarines, intensified crew training, and the selection of a less well defended target would lead to better results and an increased chance of the crews of the midgets to return alive from their mission. Therefore, on 16 December 1941, the navy initiated plans for a second midget submarine operation.
The plans called for two simultaneous attacks against Allied naval vessels in the Indian
and South Pacific Ocean
s. These attacks were intended as diversions ahead of the attack on Midway Island
in the North Pacific, with the Japanese hoping to convince the Allies that they intended to attack to the south or west of their conquests. Eleven submarines of the 8th Submarine Squadron were to carry out the two attacks, the five submarines of the Western Attack Group in the Indian Ocean, and the six submarines of the Eastern Attack Group in the Pacific Ocean . The submarine groups were to select a suitable port of attack, based on their own reconnaissance.
The Western Attack Group selected the port of Diégo-Suarez
in Madagascar. This attack—which occurred at nightfall on 30 May and resulted in the damaging of the battleship and the sinking of the tanker British Loyalty—came 22 days after the British captured the port from Vichy France
at the beginning of the Battle of Madagascar
.
The four potential targets for the Eastern Attack Group were Nouméa, Suva, Auckland, and Sydney. I-21 and I-29 were sent to select the final target, with I-29 sailing to Sydney. On the evening of 16 May, I-29 fired on the 5135 LT (5,217.4 t) Russian merchant vessel Wellen, 30 mi (26.1 nmi; 48.3 km) from Newcastle, New South Wales
. Although Wellen escaped with minimal damage, shipping between Sydney and Newcastle was halted for 24 hours while aircraft and all available anti-submarine ships from Sydney, including Dutch light cruiser HNLMS Tromp
, Australian destroyer and U.S. destroyer , searched unsuccessfully for the submarine. Muirhead-Gould concluded that the submarine had operated alone and had left the area immediately after the attack.
I-29s floatplane made a reconnaissance flight over Sydney on 23 May. A secret radar unit set up in Iron Cove detected the flight, but authorities dismissed its report as a glitch, as there were no Allied aircraft operating over Sydney. The aircraft was damaged or destroyed on landing, although its two crew survived. They reported the presence of several capital ship
s, including two battleships or large cruisers, five other large warships, several minor war vessels and patrol boats, and prolific merchant shipping. The report, which the Allied FRUMEL
signals intelligence network partially intercepted, resulted in the Japanese navy selecting Sydney as the target. The three midget-carrying submarines rendezvoused with I-29 and I-21 approximately 35 mi (30.4 nmi; 56.3 km) north-east of Sydney Heads
, with all five submarines in position by 29 May.
launched RAAF
Wirraway
fighters, which failed to locate I-21 or the floatplane. As a result, the reconnaissance flight did not result in the authorities in Sydney taking any special defence measures. The floatplane was seriously damaged on landing and had to be scuttled, but both aircrew survived.
The choice of targets was left up to the midget commanders, with advice that they should primarily target aircraft carriers or battleships, with cruisers as secondary targets. The midgets were to operate to the east of the Harbour Bridge, although if no suitable targets were to be found in this area they were to move under the Bridge and attack a battleship and large cruiser believed to be in the inner harbour. When the second reconnaissance flyover revealed that the expected British battleship——was nowhere to be found, USS Chicago became the priority target.
After completing their mission, the midgets were to depart Sydney Harbour and head south for 20 nmi (23 mi; 37 km) to the recovery point off Port Hacking. Four of the mother submarines would be waiting in an east–west line 16 km (8.6 nmi; 9.9 mi) long, with the fifth waiting 6 km (3.2 nmi; 3.7 mi) further south.
s while Yarromas commander requested permission from Sydney Naval Headquarters to open fire. The depth charges failed to detonate, as the water was too shallow for the hydrostatic fuse setting. At 22:35, while Yarroma was waiting for permission to fire, and Lolita was setting up to deploy a third depth charge, the two crewmen on M-14 activated one of the submarine's scuttling charges, killing themselves and destroying the submarine's forward section.
Muirhead-Gould gave the general alarm, along with orders for ships to take anti-submarine measures, at 22:27; the alarm was repeated at 22:36 with advice for ships to take precautions against attack, as an enemy submarine might be in the harbour. At the time of the first alarm, Sydney Harbour was closed to external traffic, but Muirhead-Gould ordered ferries and other internal traffic to continue, as he believed that having multiple ships travelling around at speed would help force any submarines to remain submerged.
Midget submarine M-24 was the second to enter the harbour. HMAS Falie
grazed M-24s hull and reported the contact to command. The report was not followed up. M-24 crossed the indicator loop undetected at 21:48, and at approximately 22:00 followed a Manly ferry through the anti-submarine net. At 22:52, M-24 was spotted by a Chicago searchlight operator less than 500 m (1,640.4 ft) to the moored cruiser's starboard, and on a course roughly parallel to the ship's facing. Chicago opened fire with a 5 in (127 mm) gun and a quadruple machinegun mount, but inflicted minimal damage as the weapons could not depress far enough. Some of the 5 in (127 mm) shells skipped off the water
and hit Fort Denison's Martello tower
, while fragments were later found in the suburbs of Cremorne
and Mosman
. The senior officer present aboard Chicago ordered the crew to begin preparing for departure, and for USS Perkins to begin an anti-submarine screening patrol around the cruiser, orders that were revoked by the sceptical Captain Howard Bode when he arrived onboard at around 23:30.
and also fired upon M-24 as it fled west toward the Sydney Harbour Bridge
, before the midget was able to submerge and escape. When it returned to periscope depth, the midget found itself west of Fort Denison. It turned and sailed east for about 1 nmi (1.2 mi; 1.9 km), then took up a firing position south-west of Bradley's Head, from where its commander could see Chicagos stern silhouetted against the construction floodlights at Garden Island’s new Captain Cook Graving Dock.
Midget submarine M-21—from I-22—probably entered the harbour at the same time that USS Chicago opened fire on M-24. The unarmed auxiliary patrol boat HMAS Lauriana spotted M-21 and illuminated the submarine's conning tower, while sending an alert signal to the Port War Signal Station at South Head, and the nearby anti-submarine vessel HMAS Yandra. Yandra attempted to ram the submarine, lost contact, regained contact at 23:03, and dropped six depth charges. At the time of the attack, it was assumed that the depth charges had destroyed or disabled the midget, but M-21 survived. Historians believe that the midget took refuge on the harbour floor and waited until the Allied vessels had moved away before it resumed the attack.
At 23:14, Muirhead-Gould ordered all ships to observe blackout
conditions. Just after 23:30, he set off on a barge towards the boom net, to make a personal inspection. The Admiral reached Lolita at about midnight and indicated to her crew that he did not take the reports of enemy submarines seriously, reportedly saying: "What are you all playing at, running up and down the harbour dropping depth charges and talking about enemy subs in the harbour? There's not one to be seen." The crew reiterated that a submarine had been seen, but Muirhead-Gould remained unconvinced and before he left, added sarcastically: "If you see another sub, see if the captain has a black beard. I'd like to meet him."
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Despite the blackout order, the Garden Island floodlights remained on until 00:25 the next morning. About five minutes later, M-24 fired the first of its two torpedoes; it delayed firing the second torpedo for several minutes as the midget submarines would lose longitudinal stability immediately after firing a torpedo. Historians are divided as to the exact paths of the torpedoes relative to Chicago, although all agree that the U.S. cruiser was the intended target. Both torpedoes missed Chicago, while one torpedo may have also passed close to Perkins′ starboard bow. One of the torpedoes continued underneath the Dutch submarine K-IX
and HMAS Kuttabul, then hit the breakwater Kuttabul was tied up against. The explosion broke Kuttabul in two and sank her, and damaged K-IX. The attack killed 19 Royal Australian Navy
and two Royal Navy
sailors, and wounded another 10. The explosion shook residences in the area and damaged Garden Island's lights and telecommunications. The other torpedo ran aground on the eastern shore of Garden Island without exploding. M-24 then dived and moved to leave the harbour.
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A crossing over the indicator loop that was recorded at 01:58 was initially believed to be another midget submarine entering the harbour, although later analysis showed that the reading indicated an outbound vessel and was therefore most likely represented M-24s exit. M-24 did not return to its mother submarine, and its fate remained unknown until 2006.
Ships were ordered to make for the open ocean. Chicago left her anchorage at 02:14, leaving a sailor behind on the mooring buoy in her haste to depart. Bombay, Whyalla, Canberra, and Perkins began their preparations to depart.
Just before 03:00, as Chicago was leaving the harbour, the lookouts spotted a submarine periscope passing alongside the cruiser. At 03:01, the indicator loop registered an inbound signal; M-21 was re-entering Sydney Harbour after recovering from the attack four hours previously. fired on M-21 in Neutral Bay
at 03:50, and at 05:00, three auxiliary patrol boats—HMAS Steady Hour, Sea Mist, and Yarroma—spotted the submarine's conning tower in Taylors Bay. The patrol boats had set their depth charge fuses to 15 m (49.2 ft), and when Sea Mist passed over where the submarine had just submerged and dropped a depth charge, she had only five seconds to clear the area. The blast damaged M-21, which inverted and rose to the surface before sinking again. Sea Mist dropped a second depth charge, which damaged one of her two engines in the process and prevented her from making further attacks. Steady Hour and Yarroma continued the attack, dropping seventeen depth charges on believed visual sightings and instrument contacts of the midget over the next three and a half hours. At some point during the night, the crew of M-21 committed suicide.
At 04:40, HMAS Canberra recorded that the Japanese may have fired torpedoes at her. This may have been one of many false alarms throughout the night. However, M-21 had attempted to fire its two torpedoes, but failed because of damage to the bow either from HMAS Yandras ramming or depth charges, or a possible collision with USS Chicago, making it possible that M-21 attempted to attack the cruiser. The observer aboard Canberra may have seen bubbles from the compressed air released to fire the torpedoes.
on the nights of 1 and 2 June for the midget submarines to return. FRUMEL picked up wireless traffic between the five submarines, leading the RAAF
to task three Lockheed Hudson
s and two Bristol Beaufort
s with finding the source of the communications. They were unsuccessful. On 3 June, Sasaki abandoned hope of recovering the midget submarines, and the submarines dispersed on their secondary missions.
for ships departing Melbourne, and I-29 travelled to Brisbane. I-22 left the group to conduct reconnaissance operations, first at Wellington and Auckland in New Zealand, and then at Suva in Fiji.
Between 1 and 25 June, when the four submarines arrived at Kwajalein
Atoll in the Marshall Islands
to re-supply before proceeding to Japanese shipyards for maintenance, the four submarines attacked at least seven Allied merchant vessels. Three of these were sunk: Iron Chieftain by I-24 on 3 June, Iron Crown by I-27 on 4 June, and Guatemala by I-21 on 12 June. The first two attacks resulted in 12 and 37 fatalities respectively, though the third attack killed no one. The attacks forced the authorities to institute changes in merchant traffic; travel north of Melbourne was restricted until a system of escorted convoys was established.
I-21 was the only submarine to return to Australian waters, where she sank three ships and damaged two others during January and February 1943. During her two deployments, I-21 sank 44000 LT (44,706.2 t) of Allied shipping, which made her the most successful Japanese submarine to operate in Australian waters
.
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On the morning of 8 June, I-24 and I-21 briefly bombarded Sydney and Newcastle
. Just after midnight, I-24 surfaced 9 mi (14.5 km) south-south-east of Macquarie Lighthouse
. The submarine's commander ordered the gun crew to target the Sydney Harbour Bridge
. They fired 10 shells over a four-minute period; nine landed in the Eastern Suburbs
and one landed in water. I-24 then crash dive
d to prevent successful retaliation by coastal artillery batteries. Only one shell detonated, and the only injuries inflicted were cuts and fractures from falling bricks or broken glass when the unexploded shells hit buildings. A United States Army Air Forces
pilot, 1st Lt. George Cantello, based at Bankstown Airport
was ordered into the air to retaliate, but was killed when engine failure caused his Airacobra to crash in a paddock at Hammondville
. In 1988, following efforts by residents and the U.S. Consulate in Sydney, Hammondville established a memorial park in his honour.
At 02:15, I-21 shelled Newcastle
, from 9 km (4.9 nmi; 5.6 mi) north-east of Stockton Beach
. She fired 34 shells over a sixteen minute period, including eight star shells. The target of the attack was the BHP
steelworks in the city. However, the shells landed over a large area, causing minimal damage and no fatalities: the only shell to detonate damaged a house on Parnell Place, while an unexploded shell hit a tram terminus
. Fort Scratchley
returned fire, the only time an Australian land fortification has fired on an enemy warship during wartime, but the submarine escaped unscathed.
The main impact of the midget submarine attack and subsequent operations was psychological; dispelling any belief that Sydney was immune to Japanese attack and highlighting Australia's proximity to the Pacific War
. There was no official inquiry into the attacks, despite demand from some sections of the media, as there was concern that an inquiry would lead to defeatism
and reduce faith in John Curtin
's government, particularly after the damaging inquiry into Australian defences that had followed the Japanese aerial attack on Darwin three months earlier.
intercepted the report and distributed it to Allied commanders on 30 May, Muirhead-Gould apparently did not react. New Zealand
naval authorities detected radio chatter between the Japanese submarines on 26 and 29 May, and although they could not decrypt the transmissions, radio direction finding
indicated that a submarine or submarines were approaching Sydney. The Allies considered dispatching an anti-submarine patrol in response to the 29 May fix, but were unable to do so as all anti-submarine craft were already committed to protecting a northbound troop convoy. The only response to the second reconnaissance flight on 29 May was the launching of search planes. No other defence measures were put into place. Although the midget attack on Diego Suarez
in Madagascar
occurred on the morning of 31 May (Sydney time), the Allies sent no alert to other command regions, as they believed that Vichy French
forces had launched the attack.
Historians have questioned the competence of the senior Allied officers. Muirhead-Gould had been hosting a dinner party on the night of the attack, and one of the main guests was the senior United States Navy officer in Sydney Harbour, Captain Howard Bode of USS Chicago. Both officers were sceptical that any attack was taking place. Muirhead-Gould arrived aboard HMAS Lolita at approximately midnight, an action he described as attempting to learn about the situation. But members of Lolita’s crew later recounted that when Muirhead-Gould came aboard he immediately chastised the patrol boat's skipper and crew, and quickly dismissed their report. Junior officers on Chicago provided similar descriptions of Bode's return on board, and members of both crews later claimed that Muirhead-Gould and Bode were intoxicated. It was only after the destruction of HMAS Kuttabul that both officers began to take the attack seriously.
During the attack, there were several delays between events and responses to them. Over two hours passed between the observation of M-14 in the boom net and Muirhead-Gould's first order for ships to commence anti-submarine actions. It took another two hours to mobilise the auxiliary patrol boats, which did not leave their anchorage for a further hour. Part of these delays was due to a lack of effective communications. None of the auxiliary patrol craft in the harbour had radio communications, so all instructions and reports came from signal lights via the Port War Signal Station or Garden Island, or by physical communication via launches
. In Muirhead-Gould's preliminary report on the attack, he stated that the Port War Signal Station was not designed for the volume of communications traffic the attack caused. Telephone communications with Garden Island were unreliable during the early part of the attack, and then the first torpedo explosion disabled them completely.
The need to keep information secret may also have contributed to the delays and the defenders' scepticism. As the auxiliary patrol boat crews, the indicator loop staff, and other personnel manning defensive positions would have been outside of 'need to know' and would not have been informed about any of the incidents prior to the attack, they would not have been alert, contributing to the disbelief demonstrated in the early hours of the attack.
The main flaw in the Japanese plans was the use of midget submarines for the primary attack. Midget submarines were originally intended to operate during fleet actions: they would be released from modified seaplane carriers
to run amok through the enemy fleet. This concept went out of favour as changing Japanese naval thinking and experience led to recognition that naval warfare would centre around carrier
-supported aerial combat. As a result, the midget program's focus changed to the infiltration of enemy harbours, where they would attack vessels at anchor. This concept failed completely during the attack on Pearl Harbor
, where the midgets had no effect, and tying up 11 large submarines for six weeks in support of further midget submarine attacks on Sydney and Diego Suarez proved a waste of resources.
Moreover, the failures at Sydney Harbour and Diego Suarez demonstrated that the improvements to the midget submarines made after Pearl Harbor had not increased the overall impact of the midget program. The modifications had various effects. The ability to man and deploy the midgets while the mother ships were submerged prevented the Army coastal radars from detecting the mother submarines. However, the midgets were still difficult to control, unstable, and prone to surfacing or diving uncontrollably. These manoeuvrability issues contributed to M-14s entanglement in the anti-submarine net, and the repeated detection of M-21 and M-24.
Beyond the use of the unreliable midgets, historians have identified areas in the plan of attack where the Japanese could have done significantly more damage. If the Japanese midget submarines had conducted a simultaneous, co-ordinated attack, they would have overwhelmed the defences. A chance for more damage came following the destruction of Kuttabul, when several naval vessels headed to sea, including USS Chicago, USS Perkins, Dutch submarine K-IX, HMAS Whyalla, and HMIS Bombay. The five mother submarines were already en route to the Port Hacking
recovery position, and although Sasaki's plan at Pearl Harbor had been to leave some submarines at the harbour mouth to pick off fleeing vessels, he did not repeat this tactic.
when firing its torpedoes, and consequently sending its torpedoes across the bow. Another factor that may have influenced Chicagos survival was the extinguishing of Garden Island's floodlights minutes before M-24 fired its first torpedo, impeding targeting.
The bombardments failed to cause significant physical damage, but had a major psychological impact on the residents of Sydney and Newcastle. Due to the inaccuracy of the submarines' range-finding equipment, coupled with the unstable firing platform of a submarine at sea, specific targeting was impossible. The intention of the submarine bombardment was to frighten the population of the target area.
The failure of the majority of the shells to detonate may have had various causes. As the submarines fired armour piercing
shells, intended for use against steel ship hulls, the relatively softer brick walls may have failed to trigger the impact fuses. Sea water may have degraded the shells, which the Japanese had stored in deck lockers for several weeks. The age of the shells may also have been a factor; some of the shells recovered from the Newcastle bombardment were found to be of English manufacture; surplus munitions from World War I.
In Sydney, fear of an impending Japanese invasion caused people to move west; housing prices in the Eastern Suburbs
dropped, while those beyond the Blue Mountains rose significantly. The attack also led to a significant increase in the membership of volunteer defence organisations, and strengthening of defences in Sydney Harbour and Port Newcastle.
, the Royal Air Force
's first 1,000-bomber raid, although several newspapers included a small interior article mentioning the final reconnaissance flyover. The Federal Censor ordered total censorship of the events, issuing an official statement on the afternoon of 1 June which reported that the Allies had destroyed three submarines in Sydney Harbour, and described the loss of Kuttabul and the 21 deaths as the loss of "one small harbour vessel of no military value". Smith's Weekly
finally released the real story on 6 June, and follow-up material in the 13 June issue caused more political damage, prompting the Royal Australian Navy
to attempt to charge the newspaper with releasing defence information.
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It was several days before the 21 dead sailors aboard Kuttabul could all be recovered. On 3 June, Muirhead-Gould and over 200 Navy personnel attended a burial ceremony for these sailors. On 1 January 1943, the Navy base at Garden Island was commissioned as HMAS Kuttabul in commemoration of the ferry and the lives lost.
The Australians recovered the bodies of the four Japanese crew of the two midget submarines sunk in Sydney Harbour and had them cremated at Rookwood Cemetery. For the cremation, the Allies draped the Japanese flag over each coffin and rendered full naval honours. Muirhead-Gould was criticised for this, but defended his actions as respecting the courage of the four submariners, regardless of their origin. Australian politicians also hoped that the Japanese Government would notice the respect paid to the sailors and improve the conditions Australian prisoners-of-war were experiencing in Japanese internment camps. Japanese authorities noted the funeral service, but this did not lead to any major improvement in conditions for Australian POWs. Following the use of the midget submariners' funeral by the Japanese for propaganda purposes, the Australian High Command forbade similar funerals for enemy personnel in the future.
An exchange of Japanese and Allied diplomatic personnel stranded in the opposing nations occurred in August 1942, which allowed Tatsuo Kawai
, the Japanese ambassador to Australia, to return home with the ashes of the four Japanese submariners. When the exchange ship Kamakura Maru arrived in Yokohama
, several thousand people were present to honour the four men.
The two main targets of the attack, USS Chicago and HMAS Canberra, were both lost within the next year: Canberra sinking on 9 August 1942 during the Battle of Savo Island
, and Chicago on 30 January 1943 following the Battle of Rennell Island
. None of the Japanese submarines involved in the attack survived the war. and sank I-21 on 5 February 1944 off the Marshall Islands
. An American torpedo boat sank I-22 on 25 December 1942 off New Guinea
. An American patrol craft sank I-24 on 10 June 1943 near the Aleutian Islands. and sank I-27 on 12 February 1943 off the Maldives
. Lastly, sank I-29 on 26 July 1944 in the Philippines
.
The Allies located and recovered M-21 on 3 June and M-14 on 8 June. Although both were damaged during the attack, it was possible to assemble a complete submarine from the two vessels. The centre section of the rebuilt submarine was mounted on a trailer and taken on a 4000 km (2,485.5 mi) tour throughout southern New South Wales, Victoria, and western South Australia. The purpose of the tour was twofold; it allowed Australians to see a Japanese midget submarine up close, and was used to raise A£28,000 for the Naval Relief Fund and other charities. The submarine arrived at the Australian War Memorial
in Canberra on 28 April 1943, flying the White Ensign
and a paying-off pennant. The submarine was originally displayed outside the museum in three separate pieces, but was moved inside in the 1980s due to heavy vandalism; on one occasion in 1966, a group of university students painted it bright yellow in response to The Beatles
' song Yellow Submarine
. The composite submarine was restored and remains on display inside the Memorial as part of a permanent exhibition on the attack, next to the recovered wheelhouse of HMAS Kuttabul. The conning tower from M-21 is on display at the Royal Australian Navy Heritage Centre
on Garden Island. Leftover material from M-21 was melted down and made into souvenirs following the construction of the combined vessel.
A group of seven amateur scuba divers solved the mystery of M-24s fate in November 2006, when they found a small submarine sitting upright on the seabed, approximately 5 km (2.7 nmi; 3.1 mi) from Bungan Head, off Sydney's Northern Beaches
. Commander Shane Moore, the officer responsible for the Royal Australian Navy's heritage collection, confirmed that the wreck was M-24 after viewing footage from multiple dives, along with measurements the group had taken. The wreck had several bullet holes in it, most likely from Chicagos quadruple machine-gun mount. The location of the wreck was kept secret by both the divers and the navy, with Defence Minister Brendan Nelson
promising to have the wreck protected as a war grave
. The wreck was gazette
d on 1 December 2006 as a heritage site. A 500 m (1,640.4 ft) exclusion zone was established around the wreck site, and any vessels entering the zones are liable to fines under New South Wales law of up to A$1.1 million, with additional fines and confiscation of equipment under Commonwealth law. Shore- and buoy-mounted surveillance cameras and a sonar listening device further protect the site.
On 7 February 2007, during JMSDF
Admiral Eiji Yoshikawa's visit to Australia, Yoshikawa and RAN Vice Admiral Russ Shalders
presided over a ceremony held aboard to honour M-24s crew. Relatives of the midget submarines' crews, one of the survivors from Kuttabul, and dignitaries and military personnel from Australia and Japan attended another ceremony on 6 August 2007 at HMAS Kuttabul. then carried relatives of M-24s crew to the wreck site, where they poured sake into the sea before being presented with sand taken from the seabed around the submarine.
As this midget submarine was the only one not recovered, its specific designation is unknown, and is referred to differently in the various sources. Gill refers to it as Midget A, Jenkins identifies it as Ban′s midget (after the midget's commander, Sub–Lieutenant Katsuhisa Ban), and Carruthers uses I-24, naming it after the mother submarine. Numerous sources discussing the 2005 and 2006 findings (such as newspaper articles) refer to it as M-24 or M24. This article uses the M-24 designation for consistency with the identified midget submarines and to avoid confusion with the mother submarine.
33°51′30"S 151°14′00"E
Imperial Japanese Navy submarines
Imperial Japanese Navy submarines originated with the purchase of five Holland type submarines from the United States in 1904. Japanese submarine forces progressively built up strength and expertise, becoming by the beginning of World War II one of the world's most varied and powerful submarine...
made a series of attacks on the cities of Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
and Newcastle
Newcastle, New South Wales
The Newcastle metropolitan area is the second most populated area in the Australian state of New South Wales and includes most of the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie Local Government Areas...
in New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
, Australia. On the night of 31 May/1 June, three Ko-hyoteki-class
Ko-hyoteki class submarine
The class was a class of Japanese midget submarines used during World War II. They had hull numbers but no names. For simplicity, they are most often referred to by the hull number of the mother submarine...
midget submarine
Midget submarine
A midget submarine is any submarine under 150 tons, typically operated by a crew of one or two but sometimes up to 6 or 8, with little or no on-board living accommodation...
s, each with a two-member crew, entered Sydney Harbour, avoided the partially constructed Sydney Harbour anti-submarine boom net, and attempted to sink Allied warships. After being detected and attacked, the crews of two of the midget submarines scuttled their boats and committed suicide without successfully engaging Allied vessels. These submarines were later recovered by the Allies. The third submarine attempted to torpedo the heavy cruiser , but instead sank the converted ferry HMAS Kuttabul
HMAS Kuttabul (ship)
HMAS Kuttabul was a Royal Australian Navy depot ship, and former Sydney harbour ferry. During the Japanese midget submarine attack on Sydney Harbour on 31 May 1942, Kuttabul was torpedoed and sunk, with 21 Commonwealth naval personnel aboard....
, killing 21 sailors. This midget submarine's fate was unknown until 2006, when amateur scuba divers discovered the wreck off Sydney's northern beaches
Northern Beaches (Sydney)
The Northern Beaches is an informal term used to describe the northern coastal suburbs of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia, located near the coast of the Pacific Ocean...
.
Immediately following the raid, the five Japanese fleet submarines that carried the midget submarines to Australia embarked on a campaign to disrupt merchant shipping in eastern Australian waters. Over the next month, the submarines attacked at least seven merchant vessels, sinking three ships and killing 50 sailors. During this period, between midnight and 02:30 on 8 June, two of the submarines bombarded the ports of Sydney and Newcastle.
The midget submarine attacks and subsequent bombardments are among the best-known examples of Axis naval activity in Australian waters
Axis naval activity in Australian waters
Although Australia was remote from the main battlefronts, there was considerable Axis naval activity in Australian waters during the Second World War. A total of 54 German and Japanese warships and submarines entered Australian waters between 1940 and 1945 and attacked ships, ports and other targets...
during World War II, and are the only occasion in history when either city has come under attack. The physical effects were minimal: the Japanese had intended to destroy several major warships, but sank only an unarmed depot ship, caused minimal damage to Allied shipping, and failed to damage any significant targets during the bombardments. The main impact was psychological; creating popular fear of an impending Japanese invasion and forcing the Australian military to upgrade defences, including the commencement of convoy operations to protect merchant shipping.
Forces
Japanese
The Imperial Japanese NavyImperial Japanese Navy
The Imperial Japanese Navy was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1869 until 1947, when it was dissolved following Japan's constitutional renunciation of the use of force as a means of settling international disputes...
originally intended to use six submarines in the attack on Sydney Harbour: B1-type
B1 type submarine
The Type B1 submarine were the most numerous submarine class of the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II...
submarines , , , and , and C1-type submarines and . The six submarines made up the Eastern Attack Group of the 8th Submarine Squadron, under the command of Captain Hankyu Sasaki.
On 8 June 1942, I-21 and I-29—each carrying a Yokosuka E14Y
Yokosuka E14Y
|-See also:-References:NotesBibliography* Francillon, Ph.D., René J. Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War. London: Putnam & Company Ltd., 1979. ISBN 0-370-30251-6....
1 "Glen" floatplane
Floatplane
A floatplane is a type of seaplane, with slender pontoons mounted under the fuselage; only the floats of a floatplane normally come into contact with water, with the fuselage remaining above water...
for aerial reconnaissance—scouted various Australasia
Australasia
Australasia is a region of Oceania comprising Australia, New Zealand, the island of New Guinea, and neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term was coined by Charles de Brosses in Histoire des navigations aux terres australes...
n harbours to select the ones most vulnerable to attack by midget submarines. I-21 scouted Nouméa in New Caledonia
Nouméa
Nouméa is the capital city of the French territory of New Caledonia. It is situated on a peninsula in the south of New Caledonia's main island, Grande Terre, and is home to the majority of the island's European, Polynesian , Indonesian, and Vietnamese populations, as well as many Melanesians,...
, Suva in Fiji
Suva
Suva features a tropical rainforest climate under the Koppen climate classification. The city sees a copious amount of precipitation during the course of the year. Suva averages 3,000 mm of precipitation annually with its driest month, July averaging 125 mm of rain per year. In fact,...
, then Auckland in New Zealand
Auckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...
, while I-29 went to Sydney in Australia.
On 11 May, I-22, I-24, I-27, and I-28 were ordered to proceed to the Japanese naval base at Truk Lagoon
Chuuk
Chuuk — formerly Truk, Ruk, Hogoleu, Torres, Ugulat, and Lugulus — is an island group in the south western part of the Pacific Ocean. It comprises one of the four states of the Federated States of Micronesia , along with Kosrae, Pohnpei, and Yap. Chuuk is the most populous of the FSM's...
, in the Caroline Islands
Caroline Islands
The Caroline Islands are a widely scattered archipelago of tiny islands in the western Pacific Ocean, to the north of New Guinea. Politically they are divided between the Federated States of Micronesia in the eastern part of the group, and Palau at the extreme western end...
, to each receive a Ko-hyoteki-class midget submarine
Ko-hyoteki class submarine
The class was a class of Japanese midget submarines used during World War II. They had hull numbers but no names. For simplicity, they are most often referred to by the hull number of the mother submarine...
. I-28 failed to reach Truk; she was torpedoed on the surface by the U.S. submarine on 17 May. The three remaining submarines left Truk around 20 May for a point south of the Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands is a sovereign state in Oceania, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands. It covers a land mass of . The capital, Honiara, is located on the island of Guadalcanal...
. I-24 was forced to return a day later when an explosion in her midget submarine's battery compartment killed the midget's navigator and injured the commander. The midget submarine intended for I-28 replaced the damaged midget.
Allies
Rear Admiral
Rear admiral is a naval commissioned officer rank above that of a commodore and captain, and below that of a vice admiral. It is generally regarded as the lowest of the "admiral" ranks, which are also sometimes referred to as "flag officers" or "flag ranks"...
Gerard Muirhead-Gould
Gerard Muirhead-Gould
Rear Admiral Gerard Charles Muirhead-Gould DSC was an officer of the Royal Navy.Muirhead-Gould was born in London. He was the son of Arthur Lewis Gould and Emily Gertrude Lilias Muirhead. He joined the Royal Naval Cadets in January 1904...
of the Royal Navy. On the night of the attack, three major vessels were present in Sydney Harbour; the heavy cruiser
Heavy cruiser
The heavy cruiser was a type of cruiser, a naval warship designed for long range, high speed and an armament of naval guns roughly 203mm calibre . The heavy cruiser can be seen as a lineage of ship design from 1915 until 1945, although the term 'heavy cruiser' only came into formal use in 1930...
s and , and the light cruiser
Light cruiser
A light cruiser is a type of small- or medium-sized warship. The term is a shortening of the phrase "light armored cruiser", describing a small ship that carried armor in the same way as an armored cruiser: a protective belt and deck...
. Other warships in the harbour included: destroyer tender , auxiliary minelayer , corvettes , , and , armed merchant cruisers and , and Dutch submarine K-IX
HMAS K9
HMAS K9 was a submarine that served with the Royal Netherlands Navy and the Royal Australian Navy.-Construction:...
. A converted ferry—HMAS Kuttabul—was alongside at Garden Island where she served as a temporary barracks for sailors transferring between ships. The hospital ship Oranje was also in the harbour, but departed an hour before the attack.
Harbour defences
At the time of the attack, the static Sydney Harbour defencesSydney Harbour defences
Sydney Harbour was protected by coastal batteries and other fixed defences from the early 19th century until the 1960s. These defences were constructed to protect the Australian city of Sydney from attack by enemy warships and submarines....
consisted of eight anti-submarine indicator loop
Anti-submarine indicator loop
An anti-submarine indicator loop was a submerged cable laid on the sea bed and used to detect the passage of enemy submarines. Developed by the Royal Navy during World War I, they were extensively used by the Allies during World War II to protect harbours against submarine attack.They worked as...
s — six outside the harbour, one between North Head and South Head, and one between South Head and Middle Head, as well as the partially constructed Sydney Harbour anti-submarine boom net between George's Head on Middle Head and Green Point on Inner South Head. The central section of the net was complete and support piles were in place to the west, but 400 m (1,312.3 ft) wide gaps remained on either side. Material shortages prevented the completion of the boom net prior to the attack. On the day of the attack, the six outer indicator loops were inactive; two were not functioning and there were not enough trained personnel to man both the inner and outer loop monitoring stations. The North Head – South Head indicator loop had been giving faulty signals since early 1940, and as civilian traffic regularly passed over the loop, readings were often ignored.
Harbour defence craft included the anti-submarine vessels HMAS Yandra and Bingera; the auxiliary minesweepers HMAS Goonambee and Samuel Benbow; pleasure launches
Launch (boat)
A launch in contemporary usage refers to a large motorboat. The name originally referred to the largest boat carried by a warship. The etymology of the word is given as Portuguese lancha "barge", from Malay lancha, lancharan, "boat," from lanchar "velocity without effort," "action of gliding...
converted to channel patrol boats (and armed with depth charge
Depth charge
A depth charge is an anti-submarine warfare weapon intended to destroy or cripple a target submarine by the shock of exploding near it. Most use explosives and a fuze set to go off at a preselected depth in the ocean. Depth charges can be dropped by either surface ships, patrol aircraft, or from...
s), namely HMAS Yarroma, Lolita, Steady Hour, Sea Mist, Marlean, and Toomaree; and four unarmed auxiliary patrol boats.
Prelude
Ko-hyoteki class submarine
The class was a class of Japanese midget submarines used during World War II. They had hull numbers but no names. For simplicity, they are most often referred to by the hull number of the mother submarine...
s in an unsuccessful operation against U.S. battleships during the attack on Pearl Harbor
Attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941...
. The navy hoped that upgrades to the submarines, intensified crew training, and the selection of a less well defended target would lead to better results and an increased chance of the crews of the midgets to return alive from their mission. Therefore, on 16 December 1941, the navy initiated plans for a second midget submarine operation.
The plans called for two simultaneous attacks against Allied naval vessels in the Indian
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...
and South Pacific Ocean
Oceania
Oceania is a region centered on the islands of the tropical Pacific Ocean. Conceptions of what constitutes Oceania range from the coral atolls and volcanic islands of the South Pacific to the entire insular region between Asia and the Americas, including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago...
s. These attacks were intended as diversions ahead of the attack on Midway Island
Battle of Midway
The Battle of Midway is widely regarded as the most important naval battle of the Pacific Campaign of World War II. Between 4 and 7 June 1942, approximately one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea and six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States Navy decisively defeated...
in the North Pacific, with the Japanese hoping to convince the Allies that they intended to attack to the south or west of their conquests. Eleven submarines of the 8th Submarine Squadron were to carry out the two attacks, the five submarines of the Western Attack Group in the Indian Ocean, and the six submarines of the Eastern Attack Group in the Pacific Ocean . The submarine groups were to select a suitable port of attack, based on their own reconnaissance.
The Western Attack Group selected the port of Diégo-Suarez
Antsiranana
Antsiranana , named Diego-Suarez prior to 1975, is a city at the northern tip of Madagascar.Antsiranana is the capital of Diana Region.-Transports:...
in Madagascar. This attack—which occurred at nightfall on 30 May and resulted in the damaging of the battleship and the sinking of the tanker British Loyalty—came 22 days after the British captured the port from Vichy France
Vichy France
Vichy France, Vichy Regime, or Vichy Government, are common terms used to describe the government of France that collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944. This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic...
at the beginning of the Battle of Madagascar
Battle of Madagascar
The Battle of Madagascar was the Allied campaign to capture Vichy-French-controlled Madagascar during World War II. It began on 5 May 1942. Fighting did not cease until 6 November.-Geo-political:...
.
The four potential targets for the Eastern Attack Group were Nouméa, Suva, Auckland, and Sydney. I-21 and I-29 were sent to select the final target, with I-29 sailing to Sydney. On the evening of 16 May, I-29 fired on the 5135 LT (5,217.4 t) Russian merchant vessel Wellen, 30 mi (26.1 nmi; 48.3 km) from Newcastle, New South Wales
Newcastle, New South Wales
The Newcastle metropolitan area is the second most populated area in the Australian state of New South Wales and includes most of the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie Local Government Areas...
. Although Wellen escaped with minimal damage, shipping between Sydney and Newcastle was halted for 24 hours while aircraft and all available anti-submarine ships from Sydney, including Dutch light cruiser HNLMS Tromp
HNLMS Tromp (1937)
HNLMS Tromp was the lead ship of the Tromp-class light cruisers of the Royal Netherlands Navy during and after World War II.Originally designated as a flotilla leader and a torpedo cruiser in the Deckers Fleet Plan of 1931, she was laid down at the "Nederlandsche Scheepsbouw Maatschappij" ,...
, Australian destroyer and U.S. destroyer , searched unsuccessfully for the submarine. Muirhead-Gould concluded that the submarine had operated alone and had left the area immediately after the attack.
I-29s floatplane made a reconnaissance flight over Sydney on 23 May. A secret radar unit set up in Iron Cove detected the flight, but authorities dismissed its report as a glitch, as there were no Allied aircraft operating over Sydney. The aircraft was damaged or destroyed on landing, although its two crew survived. They reported the presence of several capital ship
Capital ship
The capital ships of a navy are its most important warships; they generally possess the heaviest firepower and armor and are traditionally much larger than other naval vessels...
s, including two battleships or large cruisers, five other large warships, several minor war vessels and patrol boats, and prolific merchant shipping. The report, which the Allied FRUMEL
FRUMEL
Fleet Radio Unit, Melbourne was a United States-Australian-British signals intelligence unit, based in Melbourne, Australia during World War II. It was one of two major Allied signals intelligence units, called Fleet Radio Units, in the Pacific theatres, the other being FRUPAC , in Hawaii...
signals intelligence network partially intercepted, resulted in the Japanese navy selecting Sydney as the target. The three midget-carrying submarines rendezvoused with I-29 and I-21 approximately 35 mi (30.4 nmi; 56.3 km) north-east of Sydney Heads
Sydney Heads
Sydney Heads , is the entrance to Port Jackson in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.North Head and Quarantine Head are to the north, South Head and Dunbar Head are to the south. Middle Head, Georges Head and Chowder Head are to the west and within the bay...
, with all five submarines in position by 29 May.
Final reconnaissance
Before dawn on 29 May, I-21s floatplane performed a final reconnaissance flight over Sydney Harbour, with the mission of mapping the locations of the major vessels and of the anti-submarine net. Multiple observers spotted the floatplane but assumed it was a U.S. Navy Curtiss Seagull. No alarm was raised until 05:07, when it was realised that the only ship in the area carrying Seagulls was the U.S. cruiser Chicago, and all four of her aircraft were onboard. Richmond Air Force BaseRAAF Base Richmond
RAAF Base Richmond is one of Australia's oldest and largest air force bases. It is located within the City of Hawkesbury in the north-western fringe of Sydney, New South Wales, between the towns of Windsor and Richmond. The base is home to the Royal Australian Air Force's transport headquarters,...
launched RAAF
Royal Australian Air Force
The Royal Australian Air Force is the air force branch of the Australian Defence Force. The RAAF was formed in March 1921. It continues the traditions of the Australian Flying Corps , which was formed on 22 October 1912. The RAAF has taken part in many of the 20th century's major conflicts...
Wirraway
CAC Wirraway
The Wirraway was a training and general purpose military aircraft manufactured in Australia by the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation between 1939 and 1946...
fighters, which failed to locate I-21 or the floatplane. As a result, the reconnaissance flight did not result in the authorities in Sydney taking any special defence measures. The floatplane was seriously damaged on landing and had to be scuttled, but both aircrew survived.
Plan of attack
The Japanese planned to launch the midgets one after the other between 17:20 and 17:40, from points 5 nmi (5.8 mi; 9.3 km) outside of Sydney Harbour. The first midget was to pass through the Heads just after 18:30, but heavy seas delayed her by over an hour. The other two midgets followed at twenty minute intervals and were similarly delayed.The choice of targets was left up to the midget commanders, with advice that they should primarily target aircraft carriers or battleships, with cruisers as secondary targets. The midgets were to operate to the east of the Harbour Bridge, although if no suitable targets were to be found in this area they were to move under the Bridge and attack a battleship and large cruiser believed to be in the inner harbour. When the second reconnaissance flyover revealed that the expected British battleship——was nowhere to be found, USS Chicago became the priority target.
After completing their mission, the midgets were to depart Sydney Harbour and head south for 20 nmi (23 mi; 37 km) to the recovery point off Port Hacking. Four of the mother submarines would be waiting in an east–west line 16 km (8.6 nmi; 9.9 mi) long, with the fifth waiting 6 km (3.2 nmi; 3.7 mi) further south.
Attack
Midget submarine M-14—launched from I-27, was the first to enter Sydney Harbour. The Middle Head - South Head loop detected it at 20:01, but dismissed the reading due to heavy civilian traffic. At 20:15, a Maritime Services Board watchman spotted the midget after it passed through the western gap, collided with the Pile Light, then reversed and trapped its stern in the net. The submarine's bow broke the surface; the watchman rowed toward it to determine what it was and then rowed to the nearby patrol boat HMAS Yarroma to report his finding. Despite efforts by Yarroma to pass on this information, Sydney Naval Headquarters did not receive the report until 21:52. HMAS Yarroma and Lolita were dispatched to investigate. Upon confirming that the object in the net was a "baby submarine", Lolita dropped two depth chargeDepth charge
A depth charge is an anti-submarine warfare weapon intended to destroy or cripple a target submarine by the shock of exploding near it. Most use explosives and a fuze set to go off at a preselected depth in the ocean. Depth charges can be dropped by either surface ships, patrol aircraft, or from...
s while Yarromas commander requested permission from Sydney Naval Headquarters to open fire. The depth charges failed to detonate, as the water was too shallow for the hydrostatic fuse setting. At 22:35, while Yarroma was waiting for permission to fire, and Lolita was setting up to deploy a third depth charge, the two crewmen on M-14 activated one of the submarine's scuttling charges, killing themselves and destroying the submarine's forward section.
Muirhead-Gould gave the general alarm, along with orders for ships to take anti-submarine measures, at 22:27; the alarm was repeated at 22:36 with advice for ships to take precautions against attack, as an enemy submarine might be in the harbour. At the time of the first alarm, Sydney Harbour was closed to external traffic, but Muirhead-Gould ordered ferries and other internal traffic to continue, as he believed that having multiple ships travelling around at speed would help force any submarines to remain submerged.
Midget submarine M-24 was the second to enter the harbour. HMAS Falie
Falie
The Falie is a 46-metre ketch which traded for many years in South Australian and Australian waters. During World War II, she served in the Royal Australian Navy...
grazed M-24s hull and reported the contact to command. The report was not followed up. M-24 crossed the indicator loop undetected at 21:48, and at approximately 22:00 followed a Manly ferry through the anti-submarine net. At 22:52, M-24 was spotted by a Chicago searchlight operator less than 500 m (1,640.4 ft) to the moored cruiser's starboard, and on a course roughly parallel to the ship's facing. Chicago opened fire with a 5 in (127 mm) gun and a quadruple machinegun mount, but inflicted minimal damage as the weapons could not depress far enough. Some of the 5 in (127 mm) shells skipped off the water
Stone skipping
Stone skipping is a pastime which involves throwing a stone with a flattened surface across a lake or other body of water in such a way that it bounces off the surface of the water. The object of the game is to see how many times a stone can be made to bounce before sinking.-Names:In North America...
and hit Fort Denison's Martello tower
Martello tower
Martello towers are small defensive forts built in several countries of the British Empire during the 19th century, from the time of the Napoleonic Wars onwards....
, while fragments were later found in the suburbs of Cremorne
Cremorne, New South Wales
Cremorne is a suburb on the lower North Shore of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Cremorne is located 6 kilometres north of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of North Sydney Council....
and Mosman
Mosman, New South Wales
Mosman is a suburb on the Lower North Shore of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Mosman is located 8 kilometres north-east of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local government area of the Municipality of Mosman.-Localities:In February...
. The senior officer present aboard Chicago ordered the crew to begin preparing for departure, and for USS Perkins to begin an anti-submarine screening patrol around the cruiser, orders that were revoked by the sceptical Captain Howard Bode when he arrived onboard at around 23:30.
and also fired upon M-24 as it fled west toward the Sydney Harbour Bridge
Sydney Harbour Bridge
The Sydney Harbour Bridge is a steel through arch bridge across Sydney Harbour that carries rail, vehicular, bicycle and pedestrian traffic between the Sydney central business district and the North Shore. The dramatic view of the bridge, the harbour, and the nearby Sydney Opera House is an iconic...
, before the midget was able to submerge and escape. When it returned to periscope depth, the midget found itself west of Fort Denison. It turned and sailed east for about 1 nmi (1.2 mi; 1.9 km), then took up a firing position south-west of Bradley's Head, from where its commander could see Chicagos stern silhouetted against the construction floodlights at Garden Island’s new Captain Cook Graving Dock.
Midget submarine M-21—from I-22—probably entered the harbour at the same time that USS Chicago opened fire on M-24. The unarmed auxiliary patrol boat HMAS Lauriana spotted M-21 and illuminated the submarine's conning tower, while sending an alert signal to the Port War Signal Station at South Head, and the nearby anti-submarine vessel HMAS Yandra. Yandra attempted to ram the submarine, lost contact, regained contact at 23:03, and dropped six depth charges. At the time of the attack, it was assumed that the depth charges had destroyed or disabled the midget, but M-21 survived. Historians believe that the midget took refuge on the harbour floor and waited until the Allied vessels had moved away before it resumed the attack.
At 23:14, Muirhead-Gould ordered all ships to observe blackout
Blackout (wartime)
A blackout during war, or apprehended war, is the practice of collectively minimizing outdoor light, including upwardly directed light. This was done in the 20th century to prevent crews of enemy aircraft from being able to navigate to their targets simply by sight, for example during the London...
conditions. Just after 23:30, he set off on a barge towards the boom net, to make a personal inspection. The Admiral reached Lolita at about midnight and indicated to her crew that he did not take the reports of enemy submarines seriously, reportedly saying: "What are you all playing at, running up and down the harbour dropping depth charges and talking about enemy subs in the harbour? There's not one to be seen." The crew reiterated that a submarine had been seen, but Muirhead-Gould remained unconvinced and before he left, added sarcastically: "If you see another sub, see if the captain has a black beard. I'd like to meet him."
HMAS K9
HMAS K9 was a submarine that served with the Royal Netherlands Navy and the Royal Australian Navy.-Construction:...
and HMAS Kuttabul, then hit the breakwater Kuttabul was tied up against. The explosion broke Kuttabul in two and sank her, and damaged K-IX. The attack killed 19 Royal Australian Navy
Royal Australian Navy
The Royal Australian Navy is the naval branch of the Australian Defence Force. Following the Federation of Australia in 1901, the ships and resources of the separate colonial navies were integrated into a national force: the Commonwealth Naval Forces...
and two Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
sailors, and wounded another 10. The explosion shook residences in the area and damaged Garden Island's lights and telecommunications. The other torpedo ran aground on the eastern shore of Garden Island without exploding. M-24 then dived and moved to leave the harbour.
Ships were ordered to make for the open ocean. Chicago left her anchorage at 02:14, leaving a sailor behind on the mooring buoy in her haste to depart. Bombay, Whyalla, Canberra, and Perkins began their preparations to depart.
Just before 03:00, as Chicago was leaving the harbour, the lookouts spotted a submarine periscope passing alongside the cruiser. At 03:01, the indicator loop registered an inbound signal; M-21 was re-entering Sydney Harbour after recovering from the attack four hours previously. fired on M-21 in Neutral Bay
Neutral Bay, New South Wales
Neutral Bay is a harbourside suburb on the lower North Shore of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Neutral Bay is located 5 kilometres north of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of North Sydney Council....
at 03:50, and at 05:00, three auxiliary patrol boats—HMAS Steady Hour, Sea Mist, and Yarroma—spotted the submarine's conning tower in Taylors Bay. The patrol boats had set their depth charge fuses to 15 m (49.2 ft), and when Sea Mist passed over where the submarine had just submerged and dropped a depth charge, she had only five seconds to clear the area. The blast damaged M-21, which inverted and rose to the surface before sinking again. Sea Mist dropped a second depth charge, which damaged one of her two engines in the process and prevented her from making further attacks. Steady Hour and Yarroma continued the attack, dropping seventeen depth charges on believed visual sightings and instrument contacts of the midget over the next three and a half hours. At some point during the night, the crew of M-21 committed suicide.
At 04:40, HMAS Canberra recorded that the Japanese may have fired torpedoes at her. This may have been one of many false alarms throughout the night. However, M-21 had attempted to fire its two torpedoes, but failed because of damage to the bow either from HMAS Yandras ramming or depth charges, or a possible collision with USS Chicago, making it possible that M-21 attempted to attack the cruiser. The observer aboard Canberra may have seen bubbles from the compressed air released to fire the torpedoes.
Secondary missions
As per the operation plan, the five mother submarines waited off Port HackingPort Hacking
Port Hacking is an Australian estuary, located in Southern Sydney, New South Wales and fed by the Hacking River and several smaller creeks, including Bundeena Creek and The Basin. It is a ria, a river basin which has become submerged by the sea...
on the nights of 1 and 2 June for the midget submarines to return. FRUMEL picked up wireless traffic between the five submarines, leading the RAAF
Royal Australian Air Force
The Royal Australian Air Force is the air force branch of the Australian Defence Force. The RAAF was formed in March 1921. It continues the traditions of the Australian Flying Corps , which was formed on 22 October 1912. The RAAF has taken part in many of the 20th century's major conflicts...
to task three Lockheed Hudson
Lockheed Hudson
The Lockheed Hudson was an American-built light bomber and coastal reconnaissance aircraft built initially for the Royal Air Force shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War and primarily operated by the RAF thereafter...
s and two Bristol Beaufort
Bristol Beaufort
The Bristol Beaufort was a British twin-engined torpedo bomber designed by the Bristol Aeroplane Company, and developed from experience gained designing and building the earlier Blenheim light bomber....
s with finding the source of the communications. They were unsuccessful. On 3 June, Sasaki abandoned hope of recovering the midget submarines, and the submarines dispersed on their secondary missions.
Attacks on allied merchant shipping
Four of the submarines began operations against Allied merchant shipping. I-21 patrolled north of Sydney, while I-24 patrolled south of Sydney. I-27 began searching off Gabo IslandGabo Island
Gabo Island is a 154 ha island located off the coast of eastern Victoria, Australia, between Mallacoota and Cape Howe on the border with New South Wales. It is separated from the mainland by a 500 m wide channel; access is available by arranged flights and boats...
for ships departing Melbourne, and I-29 travelled to Brisbane. I-22 left the group to conduct reconnaissance operations, first at Wellington and Auckland in New Zealand, and then at Suva in Fiji.
Between 1 and 25 June, when the four submarines arrived at Kwajalein
Kwajalein
Kwajalein Atoll , is part of the Republic of the Marshall Islands . The southernmost and largest island in the atoll is named Kwajalein Island. English-speaking residents of the U.S...
Atoll in the Marshall Islands
Marshall Islands
The Republic of the Marshall Islands , , is a Micronesian nation of atolls and islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, just west of the International Date Line and just north of the Equator. As of July 2011 the population was 67,182...
to re-supply before proceeding to Japanese shipyards for maintenance, the four submarines attacked at least seven Allied merchant vessels. Three of these were sunk: Iron Chieftain by I-24 on 3 June, Iron Crown by I-27 on 4 June, and Guatemala by I-21 on 12 June. The first two attacks resulted in 12 and 37 fatalities respectively, though the third attack killed no one. The attacks forced the authorities to institute changes in merchant traffic; travel north of Melbourne was restricted until a system of escorted convoys was established.
I-21 was the only submarine to return to Australian waters, where she sank three ships and damaged two others during January and February 1943. During her two deployments, I-21 sank 44000 LT (44,706.2 t) of Allied shipping, which made her the most successful Japanese submarine to operate in Australian waters
Axis naval activity in Australian waters
Although Australia was remote from the main battlefronts, there was considerable Axis naval activity in Australian waters during the Second World War. A total of 54 German and Japanese warships and submarines entered Australian waters between 1940 and 1945 and attacked ships, ports and other targets...
.
Bombardment
Newcastle, New South Wales
The Newcastle metropolitan area is the second most populated area in the Australian state of New South Wales and includes most of the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie Local Government Areas...
. Just after midnight, I-24 surfaced 9 mi (14.5 km) south-south-east of Macquarie Lighthouse
Macquarie Lighthouse
The Macquarie Lighthouse, also known as South Head Upper Light, was the first, and is the longest serving, lighthouse site in Australia. It is located on Dunbar Head, Vaucluse near the entrance to Sydney Harbour. There has been a navigational aid in this vicinity since 1791 and a lighthouse near...
. The submarine's commander ordered the gun crew to target the Sydney Harbour Bridge
Sydney Harbour Bridge
The Sydney Harbour Bridge is a steel through arch bridge across Sydney Harbour that carries rail, vehicular, bicycle and pedestrian traffic between the Sydney central business district and the North Shore. The dramatic view of the bridge, the harbour, and the nearby Sydney Opera House is an iconic...
. They fired 10 shells over a four-minute period; nine landed in the Eastern Suburbs
Eastern Suburbs (Sydney)
The Eastern Suburbs is a general term used to describe the metropolitan area directly to the east and south-east of the Sydney central business district in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Eastern Suburbs can refer to the suburbs within the local government areas of Woollahra, Waverley, Dover...
and one landed in water. I-24 then crash dive
Crash dive
A crash dive is a maneuver performed by a submarine to submerge as quickly as possible to avoid attack. Crash diving from the surface to avoid attack has been largely rendered obsolete with the advent of nuclear-powered submarines as they operate constantly submerged and are unlikely to be found on...
d to prevent successful retaliation by coastal artillery batteries. Only one shell detonated, and the only injuries inflicted were cuts and fractures from falling bricks or broken glass when the unexploded shells hit buildings. A United States Army Air Forces
United States Army Air Forces
The United States Army Air Forces was the military aviation arm of the United States of America during and immediately after World War II, and the direct predecessor of the United States Air Force....
pilot, 1st Lt. George Cantello, based at Bankstown Airport
Bankstown Airport
Bankstown Airport is a general aviation airport and business park located in the City of Bankstown, from the central business district of Sydney, Australia...
was ordered into the air to retaliate, but was killed when engine failure caused his Airacobra to crash in a paddock at Hammondville
Hammondville, New South Wales
Hammondville is a suburb, in south-western Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Hammondville is located 31 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district in the local government area of the City of Liverpool.- History :...
. In 1988, following efforts by residents and the U.S. Consulate in Sydney, Hammondville established a memorial park in his honour.
At 02:15, I-21 shelled Newcastle
Shelling of Newcastle
The Shelling of Newcastle was conducted by the Japanese submarine I-21 in the early hours of 8 June 1942. The bombardment followed the Attack on Sydney Harbour on 31 May, and was conducted shortly after I-24 shelled the eastern suburbs of Sydney. During the attack I-21 fired 34 shells at Newcastle,...
, from 9 km (4.9 nmi; 5.6 mi) north-east of Stockton Beach
Stockton, New South Wales
Stockton is a suburb of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, located from Newcastle's central business district. It is the only suburb of Newcastle that lies north of the Hunter River.-Geography:...
. She fired 34 shells over a sixteen minute period, including eight star shells. The target of the attack was the BHP
BHP Billiton
BHP Billiton is a global mining, oil and gas company headquartered in Melbourne, Australia and with a major management office in London, United Kingdom...
steelworks in the city. However, the shells landed over a large area, causing minimal damage and no fatalities: the only shell to detonate damaged a house on Parnell Place, while an unexploded shell hit a tram terminus
Trams in Newcastle, New South Wales
The Newcastle Tram System was an extensive network that operated between Newcastle and the outer suburb of Wallsend from 1887-1950. At its peak the line extended from the city all the way to Speers Point and West Wallsend...
. Fort Scratchley
Fort Scratchley
Fort Scratchley is a former coastal defence installation and now museum, located in Newcastle East, a suburb of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. It was built in 1882 to defend the city against a possible Russian attack. However, its guns were not fired in anger until 8 June 1942, during the...
returned fire, the only time an Australian land fortification has fired on an enemy warship during wartime, but the submarine escaped unscathed.
Analysis
The attack on Sydney Harbour ended in failure on both sides, and revealed flaws in both the Allied defences and the Japanese tactics. During the primary attack, the Japanese lost all three midget submarines in exchange for the sinking of a single barracks ship. The subsequent operations were no more successful as the five large Japanese submarines sank only three merchant ships and caused minimal property damage during the two bombardments. The performance of the Allied defenders was equally poor. However, one historian states that the lack of damage in Sydney Harbour was due to "a combination of good luck and aggressive counter-attack".The main impact of the midget submarine attack and subsequent operations was psychological; dispelling any belief that Sydney was immune to Japanese attack and highlighting Australia's proximity to the Pacific War
Pacific War
The Pacific War, also sometimes called the Asia-Pacific War refers broadly to the parts of World War II that took place in the Pacific Ocean, its islands, and in East Asia, then called the Far East...
. There was no official inquiry into the attacks, despite demand from some sections of the media, as there was concern that an inquiry would lead to defeatism
Defeatism
Defeatism is acceptance of defeat without struggle. In everyday use, defeatism has negative connotation and is often linked to treason and pessimism, or even a hopeless situation such as a Catch-22...
and reduce faith in John Curtin
John Curtin
John Joseph Curtin , Australian politician, served as the 14th Prime Minister of Australia. Labor under Curtin formed a minority government in 1941 after the crossbench consisting of two independent MPs crossed the floor in the House of Representatives, bringing down the Coalition minority...
's government, particularly after the damaging inquiry into Australian defences that had followed the Japanese aerial attack on Darwin three months earlier.
Failures in Allied defences
The Allies failed to respond adequately to several warnings of Japanese activity off the east coast of Australia prior to the attack; they simply ignored the warnings or explained them away. They attributed the unsuccessful attack on the freighter Wellen on 16 May to a single submarine, and assumed it had departed Australian waters immediately after the attack. The first reconnaissance flight went unnoticed, and although FRUMELFRUMEL
Fleet Radio Unit, Melbourne was a United States-Australian-British signals intelligence unit, based in Melbourne, Australia during World War II. It was one of two major Allied signals intelligence units, called Fleet Radio Units, in the Pacific theatres, the other being FRUPAC , in Hawaii...
intercepted the report and distributed it to Allied commanders on 30 May, Muirhead-Gould apparently did not react. New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
naval authorities detected radio chatter between the Japanese submarines on 26 and 29 May, and although they could not decrypt the transmissions, radio direction finding
Direction finding
Direction finding refers to the establishment of the direction from which a received signal was transmitted. This can refer to radio or other forms of wireless communication...
indicated that a submarine or submarines were approaching Sydney. The Allies considered dispatching an anti-submarine patrol in response to the 29 May fix, but were unable to do so as all anti-submarine craft were already committed to protecting a northbound troop convoy. The only response to the second reconnaissance flight on 29 May was the launching of search planes. No other defence measures were put into place. Although the midget attack on Diego Suarez
Antsiranana
Antsiranana , named Diego-Suarez prior to 1975, is a city at the northern tip of Madagascar.Antsiranana is the capital of Diana Region.-Transports:...
in Madagascar
Madagascar
The Republic of Madagascar is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa...
occurred on the morning of 31 May (Sydney time), the Allies sent no alert to other command regions, as they believed that Vichy French
Vichy France
Vichy France, Vichy Regime, or Vichy Government, are common terms used to describe the government of France that collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944. This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic...
forces had launched the attack.
During the attack, there were several delays between events and responses to them. Over two hours passed between the observation of M-14 in the boom net and Muirhead-Gould's first order for ships to commence anti-submarine actions. It took another two hours to mobilise the auxiliary patrol boats, which did not leave their anchorage for a further hour. Part of these delays was due to a lack of effective communications. None of the auxiliary patrol craft in the harbour had radio communications, so all instructions and reports came from signal lights via the Port War Signal Station or Garden Island, or by physical communication via launches
Launch (boat)
A launch in contemporary usage refers to a large motorboat. The name originally referred to the largest boat carried by a warship. The etymology of the word is given as Portuguese lancha "barge", from Malay lancha, lancharan, "boat," from lanchar "velocity without effort," "action of gliding...
. In Muirhead-Gould's preliminary report on the attack, he stated that the Port War Signal Station was not designed for the volume of communications traffic the attack caused. Telephone communications with Garden Island were unreliable during the early part of the attack, and then the first torpedo explosion disabled them completely.
The need to keep information secret may also have contributed to the delays and the defenders' scepticism. As the auxiliary patrol boat crews, the indicator loop staff, and other personnel manning defensive positions would have been outside of 'need to know' and would not have been informed about any of the incidents prior to the attack, they would not have been alert, contributing to the disbelief demonstrated in the early hours of the attack.
Flaws in Japanese tactics
Seaplane tender
A seaplane tender is a ship that provides facilities for operating seaplanes. These ships were the first aircraft carriers and appeared just before the First World War.-History:...
to run amok through the enemy fleet. This concept went out of favour as changing Japanese naval thinking and experience led to recognition that naval warfare would centre around carrier
Aircraft carrier
An aircraft carrier is a warship designed with a primary mission of deploying and recovering aircraft, acting as a seagoing airbase. Aircraft carriers thus allow a naval force to project air power worldwide without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations...
-supported aerial combat. As a result, the midget program's focus changed to the infiltration of enemy harbours, where they would attack vessels at anchor. This concept failed completely during the attack on Pearl Harbor
Attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941...
, where the midgets had no effect, and tying up 11 large submarines for six weeks in support of further midget submarine attacks on Sydney and Diego Suarez proved a waste of resources.
Moreover, the failures at Sydney Harbour and Diego Suarez demonstrated that the improvements to the midget submarines made after Pearl Harbor had not increased the overall impact of the midget program. The modifications had various effects. The ability to man and deploy the midgets while the mother ships were submerged prevented the Army coastal radars from detecting the mother submarines. However, the midgets were still difficult to control, unstable, and prone to surfacing or diving uncontrollably. These manoeuvrability issues contributed to M-14s entanglement in the anti-submarine net, and the repeated detection of M-21 and M-24.
Beyond the use of the unreliable midgets, historians have identified areas in the plan of attack where the Japanese could have done significantly more damage. If the Japanese midget submarines had conducted a simultaneous, co-ordinated attack, they would have overwhelmed the defences. A chance for more damage came following the destruction of Kuttabul, when several naval vessels headed to sea, including USS Chicago, USS Perkins, Dutch submarine K-IX, HMAS Whyalla, and HMIS Bombay. The five mother submarines were already en route to the Port Hacking
Port Hacking
Port Hacking is an Australian estuary, located in Southern Sydney, New South Wales and fed by the Hacking River and several smaller creeks, including Bundeena Creek and The Basin. It is a ria, a river basin which has become submerged by the sea...
recovery position, and although Sasaki's plan at Pearl Harbor had been to leave some submarines at the harbour mouth to pick off fleeing vessels, he did not repeat this tactic.
USS Chicagos survival
Several factors beyond the control of any of the combatants contributed to the survival of USS Chicago. At the time of M-24s attack on Chicago, the latter had spent some time preparing to depart from Sydney Harbour, and although still moored and stationary, was producing large volumes of white smoke as the boilers warmed up. This smoke, streaming aft under the influence of the wind, and contrasting against the dark, low-lying cloud, may have given the impression that Chicago was moving, causing M-24 to lead the targetDeflection (military)
Deflection is a technique used for effectively firing a ranged weapon at a moving target, that describes "leading the target"; that is, shooting ahead of a moving target so that the target and projectile will collide...
when firing its torpedoes, and consequently sending its torpedoes across the bow. Another factor that may have influenced Chicagos survival was the extinguishing of Garden Island's floodlights minutes before M-24 fired its first torpedo, impeding targeting.
Bombardment impact
The failure of the majority of the shells to detonate may have had various causes. As the submarines fired armour piercing
Armor-piercing shot and shell
An armor-piercing shell is a type of ammunition designed to penetrate armor. From the 1860s to 1950s, a major application of armor-piercing projectiles was to defeat the thick armor carried on many warships. From the 1920s onwards, armor-piercing weapons were required for anti-tank missions...
shells, intended for use against steel ship hulls, the relatively softer brick walls may have failed to trigger the impact fuses. Sea water may have degraded the shells, which the Japanese had stored in deck lockers for several weeks. The age of the shells may also have been a factor; some of the shells recovered from the Newcastle bombardment were found to be of English manufacture; surplus munitions from World War I.
In Sydney, fear of an impending Japanese invasion caused people to move west; housing prices in the Eastern Suburbs
Eastern Suburbs (Sydney)
The Eastern Suburbs is a general term used to describe the metropolitan area directly to the east and south-east of the Sydney central business district in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Eastern Suburbs can refer to the suburbs within the local government areas of Woollahra, Waverley, Dover...
dropped, while those beyond the Blue Mountains rose significantly. The attack also led to a significant increase in the membership of volunteer defence organisations, and strengthening of defences in Sydney Harbour and Port Newcastle.
Aftermath
The papers did not publish news of the submarine attack until 2 June, as most of the attack occurred after the newspapers went to press on the morning of 1 June. Instead, on the morning after the attack, the front pages carried news of Operation MillenniumBombing of Cologne in World War II
The City of Cologne was bombed in 262 separate air raids by the Allies during World War II, including 31 times by the Royal Air Force . Air raid alarms went off in the winter/spring of 1940 as enemy bombers passed overhead. However, the first actual bombing took place on 12 May 1940...
, the Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
's first 1,000-bomber raid, although several newspapers included a small interior article mentioning the final reconnaissance flyover. The Federal Censor ordered total censorship of the events, issuing an official statement on the afternoon of 1 June which reported that the Allies had destroyed three submarines in Sydney Harbour, and described the loss of Kuttabul and the 21 deaths as the loss of "one small harbour vessel of no military value". Smith's Weekly
Smith's Weekly
Smith's Weekly was an Australian tabloid newspaper published from 1919 to 1950. An independent weekly published in Sydney, but read all over Australia, Smith’s Weekly was one of Australia’s most patriotic newspaper-style magazines....
finally released the real story on 6 June, and follow-up material in the 13 June issue caused more political damage, prompting the Royal Australian Navy
Royal Australian Navy
The Royal Australian Navy is the naval branch of the Australian Defence Force. Following the Federation of Australia in 1901, the ships and resources of the separate colonial navies were integrated into a national force: the Commonwealth Naval Forces...
to attempt to charge the newspaper with releasing defence information.
The Australians recovered the bodies of the four Japanese crew of the two midget submarines sunk in Sydney Harbour and had them cremated at Rookwood Cemetery. For the cremation, the Allies draped the Japanese flag over each coffin and rendered full naval honours. Muirhead-Gould was criticised for this, but defended his actions as respecting the courage of the four submariners, regardless of their origin. Australian politicians also hoped that the Japanese Government would notice the respect paid to the sailors and improve the conditions Australian prisoners-of-war were experiencing in Japanese internment camps. Japanese authorities noted the funeral service, but this did not lead to any major improvement in conditions for Australian POWs. Following the use of the midget submariners' funeral by the Japanese for propaganda purposes, the Australian High Command forbade similar funerals for enemy personnel in the future.
An exchange of Japanese and Allied diplomatic personnel stranded in the opposing nations occurred in August 1942, which allowed Tatsuo Kawai
Tatsuo Kawai (diplomat)
was a Japanese diplomat and author . He was a leaning proponent of expansionism in Japan before World War II but later became a pacifist and was Japan's first Ambassador to Australia.-Early years:...
, the Japanese ambassador to Australia, to return home with the ashes of the four Japanese submariners. When the exchange ship Kamakura Maru arrived in Yokohama
Yokohama
is the capital city of Kanagawa Prefecture and the second largest city in Japan by population after Tokyo and most populous municipality of Japan. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of Tokyo, in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshu...
, several thousand people were present to honour the four men.
Battle of Savo Island
The Battle of Savo Island, also known as the First Battle of Savo Island and, in Japanese sources, as the , was a naval battle of the Pacific Campaign of World War II, between the Imperial Japanese Navy and Allied naval forces...
, and Chicago on 30 January 1943 following the Battle of Rennell Island
Battle of Rennell Island
The Battle of Rennell Island took place on 29–30 January 1943, and was the last major naval engagement between the United States Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy during the Guadalcanal campaign of World War II...
. None of the Japanese submarines involved in the attack survived the war. and sank I-21 on 5 February 1944 off the Marshall Islands
Marshall Islands
The Republic of the Marshall Islands , , is a Micronesian nation of atolls and islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, just west of the International Date Line and just north of the Equator. As of July 2011 the population was 67,182...
. An American torpedo boat sank I-22 on 25 December 1942 off New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
. An American patrol craft sank I-24 on 10 June 1943 near the Aleutian Islands. and sank I-27 on 12 February 1943 off the Maldives
Maldives
The Maldives , , officially Republic of Maldives , also referred to as the Maldive Islands, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean formed by a double chain of twenty-six atolls oriented north-south off India's Lakshadweep islands, between Minicoy Island and...
. Lastly, sank I-29 on 26 July 1944 in the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
.
M-14 and M-21
Australian War Memorial
The Australian War Memorial is Australia's national memorial to the members of all its armed forces and supporting organisations who have died or participated in the wars of the Commonwealth of Australia...
in Canberra on 28 April 1943, flying the White Ensign
White Ensign
The White Ensign or St George's Ensign is an ensign flown on British Royal Navy ships and shore establishments. It consists of a red St George's Cross on a white field with the Union Flag in the upper canton....
and a paying-off pennant. The submarine was originally displayed outside the museum in three separate pieces, but was moved inside in the 1980s due to heavy vandalism; on one occasion in 1966, a group of university students painted it bright yellow in response to The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
' song Yellow Submarine
Yellow Submarine (song)
"Yellow Submarine" is a 1966 song by The Beatles, written by Paul McCartney , with lead vocals by Ringo Starr. It was included on the Revolver album and issued as a single, coupled with "Eleanor Rigby". The single went to number 1 on every major British chart, remained at number 1 for four weeks...
. The composite submarine was restored and remains on display inside the Memorial as part of a permanent exhibition on the attack, next to the recovered wheelhouse of HMAS Kuttabul. The conning tower from M-21 is on display at the Royal Australian Navy Heritage Centre
Royal Australian Navy Heritage Centre
The Royal Australian Navy Heritage Centre is the maritime museum of the Royal Australian Navy. The centre opened on 4 October 2005 and is located within the Public Access Area on the northern end of Garden Island Naval base....
on Garden Island. Leftover material from M-21 was melted down and made into souvenirs following the construction of the combined vessel.
M-24
Over the 64 years following the disappearance of M-24 after the attacks, more than 50 people approached the Royal Australian Navy claiming to have found the submarine. All of these claims were found to be false. One early theory about the midget's fate was that it was damaged or destroyed, along with M-21, in or around Taylors Bay, which would account for reports from Steady Hour and Yarroma of multiple submarines during their three-hour attack against M-21. A second theory was that the midget attempted to return to the mother submarines but exhausted its battery power before reaching the Port Hacking recovery point and would therefore be outside and to the south of Sydney Heads. The third theory was that the midget's crew decided to avoid endangering the five larger submarines during the recovery process, and either ran straight out to sea or headed north.A group of seven amateur scuba divers solved the mystery of M-24s fate in November 2006, when they found a small submarine sitting upright on the seabed, approximately 5 km (2.7 nmi; 3.1 mi) from Bungan Head, off Sydney's Northern Beaches
Northern Beaches (Sydney)
The Northern Beaches is an informal term used to describe the northern coastal suburbs of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia, located near the coast of the Pacific Ocean...
. Commander Shane Moore, the officer responsible for the Royal Australian Navy's heritage collection, confirmed that the wreck was M-24 after viewing footage from multiple dives, along with measurements the group had taken. The wreck had several bullet holes in it, most likely from Chicagos quadruple machine-gun mount. The location of the wreck was kept secret by both the divers and the navy, with Defence Minister Brendan Nelson
Brendan Nelson
Dr Brendan John Nelson is a former Australian politician and former federal Opposition leader. He served as a member of the Australian House of Representatives from the 1996 federal election until 19 October 2009 as the Liberal member for Bradfield, a northern Sydney seat...
promising to have the wreck protected as a war grave
War grave
A war grave is a burial place for soldiers or civilians who died during military campaigns or operations. The term does not only apply to graves: ships sunk during wartime are often considered to be war graves, as are military aircraft that crash into water...
. The wreck was gazette
Gazette
A gazette is a public journal, a newspaper of record, or simply a newspaper.In English- and French-speaking countries, newspaper publishers have applied the name Gazette since the 17th century; today, numerous weekly and daily newspapers bear the name The Gazette.Gazette is a loanword from the...
d on 1 December 2006 as a heritage site. A 500 m (1,640.4 ft) exclusion zone was established around the wreck site, and any vessels entering the zones are liable to fines under New South Wales law of up to A$1.1 million, with additional fines and confiscation of equipment under Commonwealth law. Shore- and buoy-mounted surveillance cameras and a sonar listening device further protect the site.
On 7 February 2007, during JMSDF
Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force
The , or JMSDF, is the naval branch of the Japan Self-Defense Forces, tasked with the naval defense of Japan. It was formed following the dissolution of the Imperial Japanese Navy after World War II....
Admiral Eiji Yoshikawa's visit to Australia, Yoshikawa and RAN Vice Admiral Russ Shalders
Russ Shalders
Vice Admiral Russell Edward Shalders, AO, CSC, RAN is a retired admiral of the Royal Australian Navy. He served as Vice Chief of the Australian Defence Force from 2002 to 2005, and as Chief of Navy from 2005 to 2008.-Service history:...
presided over a ceremony held aboard to honour M-24s crew. Relatives of the midget submarines' crews, one of the survivors from Kuttabul, and dignitaries and military personnel from Australia and Japan attended another ceremony on 6 August 2007 at HMAS Kuttabul. then carried relatives of M-24s crew to the wreck site, where they poured sake into the sea before being presented with sand taken from the seabed around the submarine.
Footnotes
Some sources give the date of the reconnaissance flight as 30 May.As this midget submarine was the only one not recovered, its specific designation is unknown, and is referred to differently in the various sources. Gill refers to it as Midget A, Jenkins identifies it as Ban′s midget (after the midget's commander, Sub–Lieutenant Katsuhisa Ban), and Carruthers uses I-24, naming it after the mother submarine. Numerous sources discussing the 2005 and 2006 findings (such as newspaper articles) refer to it as M-24 or M24. This article uses the M-24 designation for consistency with the identified midget submarines and to avoid confusion with the mother submarine.
External links
- Found It! – the 60 Minutes segment revealing the discovery of M-24
- Australia's War 1939-1945: Australia Attacked - Sydney Harbour Overview of the events. Includes an animation showing the events immediately prior to and during the attack.
33°51′30"S 151°14′00"E