Matome Ugaki


Matome Ugaki was an admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II, remembered for his extensive and revealing war diary, role at the Battle of Leyte Gulf, and kamikaze suicide hours after the announced surrender of Japan at the end of the war.

Biography

Early career

Born to a farming family in rural Akaiwa District, Okayama, Ugaki graduated from the 40th class Imperial Japanese Naval Academy in 1912. He placed 9th out of 144 cadets, and served as midshipman on the cruisers and. He was commissioned as ensign on 1 December 1913 and was assigned to the battlecruiser. He subsequently served on the battlecruiser, cruiser and destroyer. After his promotion to lieutenant on 1 December 1918, he attended naval artillery school, and was assigned as chief gunnery officer to the destroyer.
In 1924, Ugaki graduated from the 22nd class of the Naval Staff College, and was promoted to lieutenant commander. After a brief posting aboard the cruiser, he served three years as a staff member of the Naval Gunnery School, and was then appointed as a resident officer in Germany from 1928–1930, with the rank of commander.
After his promotion to captain on 1 December 1932, Ugaki served as an instructor at the Naval Staff College. In 1935, Ugaki was assigned as a staff officer to the Combined Fleet for a year before he was given his first command: the cruiser. The following year, he was given command of battleship.

World War II

Ugaki became rear admiral on 15 November 1938. In August 1941, just prior to Japan′s attack on European/US interests in the Pacific Theater,, Ugaki was appointed Chief-of-Staff of the Combined Fleet under Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in which he served until May 1943. He was promoted vice admiral on 1 November 1942.
Traveling with Yamamoto in a separate Mitsubishi G4M bomber, both aircraft were shot down on 18 April 1943 over Bougainville in the Solomon Islands, in what the United States named "Operation Vengeance". Yamamoto′s aircraft crashed in the jungle, while Ugaki′s fell into the sea at high speed. He was one of three survivors, the others being the bomber's pilot Hayashi and another staff officer, Kitamura.
After he recovered from his wounds, in February 1944 Ugaki was placed in command of the 1st Battleship Division, and was commander during the disastrous Battle of Leyte Gulf, including the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea on 24 October, and Battle off Samar on 25 October 1944. Despite the tremendous potential firepower of these three vessels, the largest in the Imperial Navy, only modest damage was inflicted on the American forces, and from the fall of 1944 to the summer of 1945 all three ships would be severely damaged by overwhelming strikes by U.S. carrier-based planes.
Recalled to Japan in February 1945, Ugaki was appointed commander of IJN Fifth Air Fleet based in Kyūshū and overseeing all naval aircraft in the region from his headquarters in a cave bunker to protect him from the growing threat of B-29 Superfortress attacks. In March, he launched a long-range strike of kamikaze against the U.S. fleet anchored at Ulithi followed by the first waves of Operation Ten-Go in April, which involved hundreds of kamikaze attacks against U.S. Navy ships in the vicinity of Okinawa. Though such air attacks throughout this campaign caused fearsome superficial damage and crew casualties to a great number of Allied vessels, no Pacific Fleet surface warships larger than a destroyer were sunk directly by this method during the spring of 1945.
Meanwhile, he gathered even more aircraft and hid them to be used in the same fashion in defense of Kyūshū against the expected Allied invasion that was sure to come. Ugaki planned to hit the invasion forces with hundreds of aircraft and suicide boats in a few hours in Operation Ketsu-Go.

Final mission

On 15 August 1945, Emperor Hirohito made a radio announcement conceding defeat and calling for the military to lay down their arms. After listening to the announcement announcing Japan's defeat, Ugaki made a last entry in his diary noting that he had not yet received an official cease-fire order, and that as he alone was to blame for the failure of his valiant aviators to stop the enemy, he would fly one last mission himself to show the true spirit of bushido. His subordinates protested, and even after Ugaki had climbed into the backseat of a Yokosuka D4Y, Warrant Officer Akiyoshi Endo—whose place in the kamikaze roster Ugaki had usurped—climbed into the same space that the admiral had already occupied. Thus, the aircraft containing Ugaki took off with three men, as opposed to two each in the remaining ten aircraft. Prior to boarding his aircraft, Ugaki posed for pictures and removed his rank insignia from his dark green uniform, taking only a ceremonial short sword given to him by Admiral Yamamoto.
Elements of this last flight most likely followed the Ryukyu flyway southwest to the many small islands north of Okinawa, where U.S. forces were still on alert at the potential end of hostilities. Endo served as radioman during the mission, sending Ugaki's final messages, the last of which at 19:24 reported that the plane had begun its dive onto an American vessel. However, U.S. Navy records do not indicate any successful kamikaze attack on that day, and it is likely that all aircraft on the mission crashed into the ocean, struck down by American anti-aircraft fire. Although there are no precise accounts of an intercept made by Navy or Marine fighters or Pacific Fleet surface units against enemy aircraft in this vicinity at the time of surrender, it is possible further research may reveal more detail as to which ships were attacked.
The next morning, the crew of American landing craft LST-926 claimed to have found the still smoldering remains of a 'cockpit' with three bodies on the beach of Iheyajima Island. The third man, his head crushed and right arm missing, wore a dark green uniform and a short sword was found nearby. The sailors buried the bodies in the sand. He was posthumously awarded the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun.