H-War Kolb on Scalia, 'Germany's Last Mission to Japan: The Failed Voyage of U-234' Review published on Monday, May 1, 2000 Joseph M. Scalia. Germany's Last Mission to Japan: The Failed Voyage of U-234. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2000. xxiv + 296 pp. $29.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-55750-811-9. Reviewed by Charles C. Kolb (National Endowment for the Humanities) Published on H-War (May, 2000) Fortuitous Failure -- The Mission of U-234 from Germany to Japan Fortuitous Failure -- The Mission of U-234 from Germany to Japan Untersee boot U-234 was built between 1 October 1941 and 2 March 1944 at Kiel by F. Krupp Germaniawerft AG. Originally designed in 1938, it was intended to be one of a total of eight Type XB ocean-going mine-layers. It was instead refitted as a transport submarine and assigned to the perilous Germany-to-Japan run. This was the largest type of German U-boat ever constructed at 1763 tons displacement, 2710 tons submerged and fully loaded, and 89.9 meters in overall length. Under the command of Kapitanleutnant (Kptlt., e.g. Lt. Cdr.) Johann-Heinrich Fahler, U-234 was originally designed to carry 66 SMA mines. It had only two stern torpedo tubes and carried a maximum of fifteen torpedoes.[1] A newly-designed breathing and exhaust mast, the Schnorchel, permitted the U-234 to travel submerged for extraordinary distances. U-234 departed Kiel on its maiden voyage on 25 March 1945, bound for Kristiansand, Norway. There it loaded important cargo and personnel and departed on 15 April for a submerged voyage which was to take them around the Cape of Good Hope, eventually concluding in Japan. That transit was never completed. Among the three hundred ton cargo was three complete Messerschmitt aircraft, a Henschel HS-293 glider-bomb, extra Junkers jet engines, and ten canisters containing 560 kg (1,235 lbs.) of uranium oxide (U235). The uranium oxide was to be used by the Japanese as a catalyst for the production of synthetic methanol used for aviation fuel. Other cargo consisted of one ton of diplomatic mail and 6,615 pounds of technical material including drawings of ME 163 and ME 262 aircraft, plans for the building of aircraft factories, V-1 and V-2 weapons, naval ships (destroyers of classes 36C and Z51, and M and S boats), and submarines (Types II, VII, IX, X, XI, XXI, and XXIII). German fire-control computers, Lorenz 7H2 bombsights, Lufte 7D bombsight computers, FUG 200 Hohehtweil airborne radars and bomb fuses were also included in the manifest along with other military equipment and personal luggage. Previous examinations of the voyage of U-234 have centered on the cargo carried by the vessel. The presence of the uranium oxide, for example, has generated much interest and conjecture. Scalia, however, shifts this focus, and argues that the submarine's greatest value lay not in her cargo, but in the individuals who were accompanying the material to Japan. Citation: H-Net Reviews. Kolb on Scalia, 'Germany's Last Mission to Japan: The Failed Voyage of U-234'. H-War. 03-06-2014. https://networks.h-net.org/node/12840/reviews/13147/kolb-scalia-germanys-last-mission-japan-failed-voyage-u-234 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 1 H-War The twelve passengers included a German general and his staff, four German naval officers, civilian engineers and scientists, and two Japanese naval officers. The latter were Lt. Cdr. Tomanaga Hideo, a naval aviator and submarine specialist who had come to Germany by Japanese submarine I-29 in 1943, and Lt. Shoji Genzo, an aircraft specialist and former naval attach in several European countries. Luftwaffe General (General der Flieger) Ulrich Kessler, a Prussian-born diplomat and military strategist, was originally a naval officer, but resigned his commission in 1933 and became commander of Luftwaffe Stuka squadrons operating in Poland, Norway, and France. He was disliked by Goering and rumored to have been involved in anti-Hitler activities, including the infamous assassination plot. Kessler was being sent to assist the Japanese in combat tactics using squadrons of ME 262 and ME 163 aircraft against Allied bombers. Oberleutnant (1st Lt.) Erich Menzel, a Luftwaffe navigator and bombardier who was an aeronautical communications and radar expert, also had combat experience against the British, Americans, and Russians. Oberstleutnant (Lt. Col.) Fritz von Sandrart, a FLAK antiaircraft defense strategist, was assigned to enhance Japanese defense systems. There were four naval officers, each with different responsibilities. Fregattenkapitan (Lt. Cdr.) Gerhard Falcke, a naval architect and construction engineer who spoke fluent Japanese, was to use German naval blueprints to initiate new shipbuilding. Kptlt. (Lt. Cdr.) Richard Bulla, who had the unique distinction of serving as an officer in both the Luftwaffe and Kreigsmarine simultaneously, was an expert on armaments, new weapons, and carrier-based aviation. Oberleutnant Heinrich Hellendorn, a shipboard FLAK artillery officer, served as a German observer, while Kay Niescheling, an ardent National Socialist who was a naval judicial and investigative officer, was being sent to rid the German diplomatic corps in Japan of remnants of the Richard Sorge spy ring. Among the civilian scientists was Dr. Heinz Schlicke, a radar, infrared, and countermeasures specialist who was the director of the Naval Test Fields in Kiel. His task was to aid the Japanese in developing and manufacturing electronic devices and instruments. Two "men from Messerschmitt," August Bringewalde, Willi Messerschmitt's "right-hand man" who was in charge of ME 262 production, and Franz Ruf, an industrial machinery specialist who designed machines and appliances to manufacture aircraft components, were also among the notable passengers. The Tripartite Pact of 27 September 1940 for military and technical cooperation between Germany, Italy, and Japan required reciprocal exchanges of raw materials, equipment, and personnel. Germany and Japan encountered difficulties in their attempts to carry out this exchange, though. Axis blockade running vessels were being sunk with increasing frequency thanks to MAGIC intercepts and decrypts. When Germany invaded Russia in June 1941, shipping war material and personnel via the Trans- Siberian Railway ceased abruptly as Russia became an Anglo-American ally.[2] The fragile Japanese- Russian non-aggression pact forced a maritime exchange, although there was an alternative plan to fly the precious cargo and personnel across Russia to Japan in three Junkers aircraft. Between December 1940 and June 1941, five German merchant vessels departed Japan, with three arriving in Bordeaux. By February 1942, nine German and three Italian vessels had made the voyage, but three were sunk en route. Fifteen Axis blockade runners departed the Far East in the winter of 1942-1943, but only seven reached Europe, while in 1944 only one of five ships departing Japan reached Nazi-occupied Europe. In 1942, a Japanese submarine cruiser completed a mission from Citation: H-Net Reviews. Kolb on Scalia, 'Germany's Last Mission to Japan: The Failed Voyage of U-234'. H-War. 03-06-2014. https://networks.h-net.org/node/12840/reviews/13147/kolb-scalia-germanys-last-mission-japan-failed-voyage-u-234 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 2 H-War Japan to France and back but fell victim to a mine in Singapore harbor.[3] Hence, by July 1943, Axis submarines were pressed into transport service. Allied antisubmarine countermeasures resulted in severe losses, however. Three of seven reconfigured Italian submarines reached Japan from Bordeaux, but only one of four Japanese submarines sent to Europe completed the round trip. Because it was too late to build new transport submarines, other large U-boats were refitted. One reached Japan and was commissioned into the Japanese Navy, five boats out of eleven arrived at Penang, Malaya, and only six of eighteen Type IXD/2 boats that departed Penang from 1943 to 1945 ever reached Europe. (Roskill and Niestl provide additional documentation of these events [4, 5].) U-boats made the trip from the Nazi-held ports of Kiel, Bordeaux, and Kristiansand to Kobe, Japan via the Cape of Good Hope. On 9 February 1945, the U-864, which carried similar cargo and personnel to that of the U-234, was torpedoed and sunk with the loss of all hands off Bergen, Norway by the British submarine HMSVenturer . Raw rubber, molybdenum, tungsten, tin, zinc, opium, and quinine were typical cargoes destined for Germany. On 8 May, during the final days of the Third Reich, U-234 was ordered to either return to Bergen or continue to Japan, but when the European war ended, the Japanese severed relations with defeated Nazi Germany. On 10 May the Allies ordered all U-boats to surrender. Because U-234 had two Japanese nationals aboard and Japan had already bought and paid for the uranium oxide, Kptlt. Fahler faced a dilemma. He conferred with General Kessler and the two Japanese officers. The latter had the knowledge to scuttle U-234, but had been deeply affected by German comradeship and goodwill. Fahler decided to bypass the Canadian Navy and Halifax where he had been ordered, and chose instead to surrender to the Americans. The Japanese committed suicide by ingesting lethal amounts of Luminal and were buried at sea with full military honors along with their secret papers and Tomanaga's samurai sword. Fahler jettisoned all of the new acoustic torpedoes and microfilms of sensitive documents to prevent the Americans from obtaining them, but failed to dispose of secret war documents or the U-234's war diary (Kriegstagebuch), which was later recovered by the U.S.