Kazuo Sakamaki

Sakamaki was one of ten sailors (5 officers and 5 petty officers) who volunteered to attack Pearl Harbor in a Ko-hyoteki class midget submarine on 7 December 1941. Of the ten, nine were killed (including the other crewman in his submarine, Kiyoshi Inagaki). Sakamaki was captured, becoming the first prisoner taken by the Americans in World War II. Sakamaki had set an explosive charge to destroy his disabled submarine, which had been trapped on Waimanalo Beach. 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. Sakamaki was found by a Hawaiian soldier, David Akui, and was taken into military custody. When he awoke, he found himself in a hospital under American armed guard. Sakamaki unwittingly became the first Japanese prisoner of war. 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.^[1][2]

After being taken to Sand Island, Sakamaki burned himself with cigarettes and requested that he be allowed to commit suicide, which was denied. Sakamaki spent the rest of the war in prisoner of war camps on the mainland United States. At the war's end, he was repatriated to Japan, by which time he had become deeply committed to pacifism.^[2]

Sakamaki refused to speak about the war until 1991, when he attended an historical conference in Texas. He reportedly cried at the conference when he was reunited with his submarine for the first time in 50 years.^[2]

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