Kaiten

Kaiten
A Kaiten, Type 1, at the Tokyo Yasukuni War Memorial Museum.
TypeManned suicide torpedo
Place of originJapan
Service history
In service1944–1945
Used byImperial Japanese Navy
WarsWorld War II
Production history
No. builtapprox. 420
Variants
  • Type 1
  • Type 1 Mod.1
  • Type 1 Mod.2
  • Type 2 (prototype only)
  • Type 3 (only a project)
  • Type 4 (approx. 50 produced)
  • Type 5 (prototype only)
  • Type 6 (prototype only)
  • Type 10 (1-2 or 1-6 produced)
Specifications

Guidance
system
Manually piloted with gyroscopic stabilisation and automatic running.
Launch
platform
Submarine, surface ship, and coastal bunker

Kaiten (回天, literal translation: "Turning the Heaven", commonly rendered as "turn of the Heaven's will", "the heaven shaker"[1]) were crewed torpedoes and suicide craft, used by the Imperial Japanese Navy in the final stages of World War II.

  1. ^ Hashimoto, Mochitsura (1954). Sunk: The Story of the Japanese Submarine Fleet, 1914–1945. Translated by Commander E.H.M. Colegrave. New York: Henry Holt and Company.