Name Kazuo Sakamaki | ||
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Born November 8, 1918Awa, Tokushima, Japan ( 1918-11-08 ) Died November 29, 1999, Toyota, Aichi Prefecture, Japan | ||
Battles/wars Attack on Pearl Harbor Battles and wars Attack on Pearl Harbor | ||
Kazuo Sakamaki (酒巻和男, Sakamaki Kazuo, November 8, 1918 – November 29, 1999) was a Japanese naval officer who became the first Japanese prisoner of war of World War II captured by US forces.
Contents
Early life and education
Sakamaki was born in what is now part of the city of Awa, Tokushima Prefecture, one of eight sons. He was a graduate of the 68th class of the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy in 1940.
Attack on Pearl Harbor
Sakamaki was one of ten sailors (five officers and five petty officers) selected to attack Pearl Harbor in two-man Ko-hyoteki class midget submarines on 7 December 1941. Of the ten, nine were killed (including the other crewman in his submarine, Kiyoshi Inagaki). He had been chosen for the mission due to his large number of siblings. Sakamaki had set an explosive charge to destroy his disabled submarine, which had been trapped on Waimanalo Beach, Oahu. When the explosives failed to go off, he swam to the bottom of the submarine to investigate the cause of the failure and became unconscious due to a lack of oxygen. The book Attack on Pearl Harbor claims that his sub hit four coral reefs and sank. Sakamaki was found by a U.S. soldier, David Akui, and was taken into military custody. When he awoke, he found himself in a hospital under U.S. armed guard. Sakamaki became the first Japanese prisoner of war in U.S. captivity during World War II and was stricken from Japanese records and officially ceased to exist. His submarine was captured intact and was subsequently taken on tours across the United States as a means of encouraging the purchase of war bonds.
After being taken to Sand Island, Sakamaki requested that he be allowed to commit suicide, which was denied. Sakamaki spent the rest of the war in prisoner-of-war camps in the contiguous United States. At the war's end, he was repatriated to Japan, by which time he had become deeply committed to pacifism.
Outside of writing a memoir, Sakamaki refused to speak about the war until 1991, when he attended a historical conference in Texas. He reportedly cried at the conference when he was reunited with his submarine for the first time in 50 years.
Later life and death
After the war, Sakamaki worked with the Toyota Motor Corporation, becoming president of its Brazilian subsidiary in 1969. In 1983, he returned to Japan and worked for Toyota before retiring in 1987. He spent the rest of his life in Japan until his death in 1999 at the age of 81. He survived with his wife and two children.