Japan search for super tank that never saw action
A search is under way in a lake in central Japan for the last surviving example of a heavy tank that the military was developing in the latter stages of World War II to repel the anticipated Allied invasion.
The Type 4 Chi-To was by far the most advanced Japanese wartime tank to reach the production phase Photo: Wikipedia
By Julian Ryall, Tokyo
10:56AM BST 12 Apr 2013
The Type 4 Chi-To was the most advanced tank that the Japanese military ever built and - at 30 tonnes and with a 2.95-inch main gun - would have been a match for invading ground forces.
The Imperial Japanese Army had plans to construct hundreds of the tanks, but development was hampered by a lack of materials and the near-constant air raids against Japanese industrial facilities as the war reached its climax.
As a result, only six chassis had been produced by the end of the war and just two of the five-man tanks had been completed.
With the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, followed by Japan's surrender, the designers reportedly decided to dump the two completed tanks in Lake Hamana, in Shizuoka Prefecture, south-west of Tokyo, in mid-August 1945 so they would not fall into the hands of the occupying forces.
The US military did recover one of the tanks, although there is no record of what happened to it subsequently. The remaining tank is believed to still be in the lake, with a number of local people coming forward to assist in the search.
At the outset of the hunt, local resident Kenji Nakamura told the Asahi newspaper that he recalled being able to touch the tank on the bottom of the lake by diving off a bridge.
A former soldier has also come forward to say that he was ordered to sink the tanks in the deepest part of the lake.
The search, organised by a group of local residents working with a Tokyo-based marine survey company, is focusing its efforts on a stretch of the lake believed to be around 60 feet deep. The effort has been hampered to date by a thick layer of m&d on the floor of the lake.
There are no surviving blueprints or other documents about the tank and experts say the vehicle is an important historical artefact that needs to be preserved.
