These are the ruins of a kaiten training base off the coast of Nagasaki Prefecture. Towards the end of WW2, Japan was running low on munitions. For greater accuracy in hitting targets, it was decided that soldiers would be trained for suicide missions - airborne 'Kamizake' (divine wind) as well as manned-torpedos known as 'Kaiten' (heaven shaker.) I can't imagine nor summon the words to describe what must have been going through the minds of the young men (Kaiten pilots were aged between 17-28) as the hatch on their vessel was screwed shut, and they were launched into the Pacific Ocean.

 

The stories of kamikaze and kaiten interest me as they are the ultimate sacrifice of self for national ideology.