Wreck of HIJMS Naryū (成生)

 Second World War 1939-1945, shipwreck

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Laid down in March 1939 at the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ shipyard as the third member of the Sokuten Class of Minelayers, HIJMS Naryū commissioned into service with the Imperial Japanese Navy in June 1940, assigned to the Sasebo Naval District. Spending much of the next year involved in crew training at her dangerous task, the Naryū and her crew were assigned to the Maizuru Naval Station at the outbreak of war with the United States, and spent much of the next six months actively mining Japanese coastal waters and port entrances.

By mid-1942 the rapid advance of Japanese forces across the Eastern Hemisphere significantly reduced the possibility of enemy surface vessels operating in Japanese near-shore waters, and the Naryū’s mission was augmented to include anti-submarine patrols around the Kii and Bungo Straits and off the Wakayama Prefecture. Occupied in this often mundane work for the next two years, by early 1944 the Naryū and her crew were increasingly involved in convoy escort operations as larger numbers of American Submarines began to exploit the Japanese Navy’s lack of dedicated convoy escort vessels and took a heavy toll on Japan’s Merchant Fleet. At the same time, the changing tides of war also found the Naryū’s original Minelaying mission back in demand as US forces steadily encroached on Japanese waters through the latter half of 1944. After escorting a troop and munitions convoy to the rapidly expanding Japanese outposts in the Volcano Islands, the Naryū and her crew laid minefields around Chichi-Jima and several other Islands in October 1944 before returning to Yokosuka for a scheduled overhaul.

Emerging from the Yokosuka Naval Yard in December 1944 with a increased anti-aircraft and anti-submarine warfare capability, the Naryū and her crew were reassigned to the Yokosuka Naval District and began anti-submarine sweeps from their new homeport of Kushimoto in January 1945. By this point in the war, American Submarines were operating all around the Japanese Islands, using both solitary and wolfpack tactics to ravage what remained of the Japanese Merchant and Naval Escort fleets, making the Naryū’s mission of solo anti-submarine sweeps highly dangerous work. Nevertheless, the Naryū and her crew performed their mission through January and into February 1945 without incident and were operating alone roughly 70 miles off Shiono-Misaki, Wakayama Prefecture on the morning of February 16th, 1945 when their ship was picked up by the radar aboard the USS Sennett (SS-408), a patrolling US Submarine.

The non-radar equipped Naryū continued her sweeping mission unaware that she was being followed in the darkness by an American Submarine, and well before first light the Sennet had overhauled the slow-moving Minesweeper and submerged, and as the sun rose over the winter seas the Sennet began to move into position to make an attack. Misidentifying the Naryū as a Fubuki Class Destroyer, the Sennet’s Captain elected to make a Stern-tube attack on his target allowing him the option of a quick escape should his shots miss. Aboard the Naryū, there was no indication that she was in any danger as the morning progressed, and shortly after 0700hrs the crew likely sighted a friendly anti-submarine patrol plane near their position. In a favorable position at 0718hrs, the Sennet’s Captain ordered three torpedoes fired in staggered pattern into the Naryū’s path, and promptly dove to 200ft once the final torpedo was away and rigged for silent running to evade detection. To date it’s unclear if the crew aboard the Naryū sighted the inbound torpedoes or took evasive action as the three ‘fish’ sped to their ship, but the crew aboard the Sennet later reported that two of the three torpedoes were heard to hit the target, and when their submarine surfaced at 0845hrs the Naryū had sunk, leaving roughly 40 of her crew clinging to debris in the oil-filled water at this position. Though the crew aboard the Sennet attempted to rescue the men from the freezing cold waters, every surviving member of the Naryū’s crew refused to be taken aboard the American ship and were left to their fate when the Sennet departed the area to continue her patrol.

www.combinedfleet.com/Naryu_t.htm