Mochitsura Hashimoto

Mochitsura Hashimoto was a Japanese officer and a submarine commander in the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II.

Mochitsura Hashimoto was born in 1909 in Kyoto, Japan the eighth of nine children and fifth son of a kannushi (Shinto priest).

He attended Kyoto Third High School, a prestigious school, where he performed well.

In his youth he was described as self-possessed and respectful.

At the behest of his father, he applied for the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy.

The family did not have a naval background, but Hashimoto's father struggled financially on a priest's government subsidy and felt entering his son into the military would help to provide for them.

One of Hashimoto's older brothers subsequently attended the Imperial Japanese Army Academy and was commissioned into the Imperial Japanese Army.

Hashimoto graduated from high school in 1927 and was accepted into the Naval Academy.

Leaving home for the first time, Hashimoto then attended the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy at Etajima for four years, studying Japanese history, engineering, and naval tactics, as well as judo and other military athletics.

He graduated and commissioned in 1931.

In 1934, Hashimoto volunteered for the submarine service, and in 1937, he served aboard destroyers and submarine chasers off the shores of the Republic of China.

On 15 November, as a sub-lieutenant, Hashimoto was assigned to the crew of the gunboat Hozu, and was promoted to lieutenant on 1 December.

During that time, his brother was killed in action fighting on the Chinese mainland.

In 1937, Hashimoto married Nobuko Miki, the daughter of a successful Osaka businessman.

In 1938, he was assigned to the destroyer Okikaze on 15 December.

Selected for submarine school the following year, Hashimoto was assigned to the Yokosuka Naval District on 20 May 1939 and enrolled in a six-month torpedo course on 1 June, subsequently entering the naval submarine school as a Class B student on 1 December.

The couple had three sons; Mochihiro, born in 1940, Nobutake, born in 1942, and Tomoyuki, born in 1944;and Sonoe, a daughter born in 1947.

Upon completion of this training, he was assigned to the submarine I-123 on 20 March 1940 as torpedo officer, transferring to the I-155'' on 15 October in the same role.

Born in Kyoto and educated at the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy, Hashimoto volunteered for service in submarines and was aboard submarine I-24 during the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

On 15 July 1941, he was assigned to the submarine I-24, becoming its torpedo officer on 31 October, under Lieutenant Commander Hiroshi Hanabusa; the ship was based out of Kure.

Throughout the year, the submarine conducted training maneuvers with a group of midget submarines.

On 18 November, I-24 and her group sailed from Kure with a midget submarine attached to her afterdeck.

Steaming eastward, she surfaced 10 mi off Waikiki on 6 December.

The sub was a part of a large group of submarines which would support the Attack on Pearl Harbor.

Hashimoto witnessed the final ritual of Kazuo Sakamaki and Kyoji Inagaki, who would man the midget submarine, which cast off at 05:30.

I-24 remained at a rendezvous point to wait for the midget sub, which never came.

On 9 December, I-24 steamed for Kure.

Upon the submarine's return to Kure, Hashimoto was detached and assigned to the advanced course at Submarine School on 1 February 1942, to prepare him for command of a submarine.

Graduating from this course on 30 June, Hashimoto was given command of submarine Ro-31, a coastal defense vessel.

For the remainder of 1942, Hashimoto operated his ship in home waters off Yokosuka training crews and trying new equipment and doing research for the development of Japanese submarine doctrine.

He was promoted to lieutenant commander on 1 November.

In 1943, he was given command of submarine I-158 for coastal defense, and later in the year was given command of submarine Ro-44 for the same duties.

Hashimoto commanded coastal patrol and training submarines off Japan for much of the war, and in 1944 took command of I-58, a submarine which was equipped to carry kaiten manned torpedoes.

After a number of unsuccessful operations, under the command of Hashimoto I-58 sank Indianapolis on 30 July with two Type 95 torpedoes while on a midnight patrol.

Hashimoto's submarine then returned to Japan, one of the few Japanese submarines to survive the war.

Hashimoto was called to testify on behalf of the prosecution at the court-martial of Charles B. McVay III, the commanding officer of Indianapolis, a move which was controversial at the time.

He was later part of an effort to exonerate McVay, which was eventually successful.

Hashimoto, whose entire family died in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, later became a Shinto priest.

He was captain of the submarine I-58, which sank the American heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis (CA-35) in 1945 after its delivery of parts and enriched uranium for the first atomic weapon used in wartime, Little Boy, prior to the attack on Hiroshima.

He died in 2000, thirteen days after learning of McVay's exoneration.