Being on a Japanese Submarine During WW2 Sucked

Being on a Japanese Minesweeper During WW2 Sucked The Imperial Japanese Navy called minesweepers the foundation of every fleet operation. That was the official version. Before destroyers could move, before convoys could sail, before the capital ships of the Japanese Navy could pass through contested waters, the minesweepers went first. But going first meant entering the water everyone else was trying to avoid. A W-class minesweeper was small, slow, lightly armed, and sent directly into minefields filled with explosives that did not need to aim, chase, or miss. Contact mines waited beneath the surface. Magnetic and acoustic mines sat on the seabed. By 1945, American B-29s were dropping thousands of them into Japanese home waters faster than Japanese crews could clear them. This video tells the brutal reality of serving on a Japanese minesweeper during World War II — the heat, the exhaustion, the fragile ships, the impossible odds, and the men who stood on open decks shooting floating mines that could erase them in a single detonation. They were told their mission was essential. It was. What the Navy did not say was what it would cost the men ordered to go first. #ww2history #worldwar2 #ww2stories #japanesenavy #pacificwar #navalhistory #militaryhistory #minesweeper #operationstarvation #imperialjapanesenavy