10 x 8 inches, 25 x 20 cms, 43 printed typescript pages, 25 figures of technical details and layouts.
A lovely example in its original soft cover wrappers, protected in an archival clear plastic sleeve and preserved in a modern red cloth slip-case, leather label on spine.
In the summer of 1945 when the defeat of Japan, however it was to be achieved, was considered imminent, the United States Navy established a mission to determine the position of the Japanese in the field of naval technology.
Two of the Japanese naval targets for investigation over the following few months were Shinyo (special attack boats) and Kaiten (human torpedo/one man submarines). Both types of vessel were so-called "suicide" craft, seaborne equivalents of Kamikaze aircraft.
Shinyo held an explosive charge in their bows and were designed to ram the side of enemy vessels. They were manned by school boys in their mid-teens, around 16 or so years of age. Shinyo scored some limited successes in the Philippines and Okinawa, but heavy gunfire from Allied ships and PT-boats stopped most of them. Others were lost in transit, met with accidents, or were strafed and sunk by American aircraft.
Kaiten were one-man submarines, carried on the deck of larger submarines and launched from underwater, and were substantially altered torpedos having
human control and additional fuel capacity. These midget submarines were manned by volunteers of 18 to 20 years of age. The Japanese claimed great success in the encounters between Kaiten and US enemy shipping.
An exceedingly rare example of the original 1946 Report covering both Shinyo and Kaiten, marked as "Restricted" and with the tipped-in slip of the British Intelligence Objectives Sub-Committee, this being shown as Copy No. 66.
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