Evergreen
Artist: John Meeks
Original painting is oil on canvas measuring approx 36" x 20"
Subject: U-Boat 'U-530' pulls away from Japanese I-Boat ‘I-52'
The story behind the painting...
With a belch of exhaust from her diesels, Type IXC-40 U-Boat U530 edges away from Japanese C3 Class submarine I-52, as two Japanese sailors in a rubber dinghy make their way back to their boat. It is June 23rd 1944 and we are in mid-Atlantic. Undoubtedly - there must be skulduggery afoot !
And, as we all now know.....there was !
I-52 was what has now (to some) become known as "Japan's Golden Submarine". Her mission identity was codenamed "Momi" ("Evergreen" or "Fir Tree", in Japanese); her destination was Lorient, in German-occupied France.
A brand-new "C3" class boat, this was her maiden voyage. She was carrying a strategically important cargo of essential rubber and other raw materials, several civilian engineers and technicians on loan to Germany, a crew of nearly one hundred, ....and two tons of gold.
In the late evening of June 23 she made rendezvous with the German boat U-530 which transferred to her a "Naxos" radar installation, two technicians to install it, and a pilot to get her safely in to Lorient. The two boats parted, and slipped away into the night...
U-530, under the command of Kapitänleutnant Kurt Lange, wisely submerged to continue her patrol to the Caribbean. With a false sense of security, perhaps brought about by the moonless night, Commander Uno Kameo of the I-52 did not.
In truth, both submarines had been tracked by the allies, and within hours the Japanese boat had been found by aircraft from (...the remarkably successful...) USS Bogue. She was depth charged, and then torpedoed, to sink with a total loss of 109 Japanese and three German lives.
In 1995, American Paul Tidwell finally located and filmed her wreck - starting a whole new story (with which many of us are now familiar) - which goes on to this day. As a consequence the wreck is now an official Japanese War Grave site.
....And the two tons of gold ?
Still there..."up for grabs"...if you want it...! But, you had better check with Tidwell, the Japanese Government, and a few others, first.... !
Oh yes...and the U-530...?
Didn't get a scratch on her. Carried on working for another year...and didn't even surrender at the end of the war !
She put into Mar del Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1945, and handed herself over to neutral authorities.......
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A very interesting subject and one of the best places to find information on this is in Boyd and Yoshida's book 'The Japanese Submarine Force and World War Two'.
The I-30 was the first Japanese boat to Europe, arriving at Lorient in August 1942, and leaving later that month with a cargo which included German technical equipment for the Japanese Armed Forces. She reached Penang, Malaya, safely, but en-route to Singapore was lost to a mine with much of the cargo.
The I-8 made a successful round trip leaving Penang on July 1943 and arriving at Brest in September. She sailed from France on 5th October with military machinery, German officers, technicians and civilian advisers, arriving at Singapore on 21st December.
The I-34 was lost to a British submarine in the Straits of Malacca on 13th November two days after leaving Singapore.
The I-29 left Singapore on 16th December 1943 carrying Japanese scientists, engineers and raw materials, arriving at Lorient on 10th March 1944. She left France on 16th April arriving at Singapore on 14th July. Ultra decrypts had alerted the Americans to the cargo the I-29 was carrying onwards to Japan - which consisted of radar and rocket-launching apparatus - and on the journey home the I-29 was sunk by the USS 'Sawfish'.
The final submarine to make for Europe was the I-52 which left Singapore on 23rd April 1944 and was sunk off the Azores in June by aircraft from the carrier USS 'Bogue'.
In his book 'U-Boats', David Miller writes that surface blockade running between the two allies was stopped on Hitler's orders in January 1944.
Page 133 of Boyd and Yoshida's book states that ''submarines were the sole means of transporting goods and personnel between Japan and Germany in the closing days of this war of grand attrition.''
