On a cloudless day off the Philippines coast, Shigetoshi Kaneko held onto floating debris while adrift, clinging to hope after escaping the Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carrier Zuikaku before it sank.
What began as another mission during World War II -- later known as the Battle of Leyte Gulf -- became a story of survival that the teen naval communications officer would remember for the rest of his life.
The battle commemorated its 80th anniversary in 2024 in what is likely to be the last major milestone most veterans will see in their lifetimes. It is still regarded as the largest naval battle in modern history in terms of the number of ships involved.
In a bid to remain in control of the Philippines, the Imperial Japanese Navy deployed virtually all its remaining major warships to the fight but was decisively defeated by U.S. naval forces.
The Battle of Leyte Gulf was separated into four main battles, with the Zuikaku participating in the Battle off Cape Engano. The aircraft carrier was dubbed the "lucky ship," as it had endured multiple battles during the war without taking much damage and was the last surviving carrier to have been involved in the Pearl Harbor attack.
On what would be the ship's last mission in October 1944, the 257-meter aircraft carrier was assigned to be a decoy to draw the U.S. military north of the Leyte Gulf in the central part of the Philippines so that other Japanese battle fleets would be able to strike and to prevent the archipelago from being retaken, according to archives compiled by the National Institute for Defense Studies.
Kaneko, then a 16-year-old noncommissioned officer, was not privy to operational details, though he was a member of the naval command attached directly to Vice Adm. Jisaburo Ozawa, who headed the mobile fleet, comprising flagship Zuikaku, light aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers and destroyers.
The overall defeat struck a heavy blow to the Imperial Japanese Navy, which lost many of its main ships, including one of the most powerful battleships, the Musashi, leaving the Combined Fleet decimated.
The Battle of Leyte Gulf ultimately achieved its strategic objectives for the Allies but at a heavy cost, with 23,313 American soldiers and sailors losing their lives. Japanese forces suffered a staggering number of casualties, with nearly 420,000 personnel killed or wounded, according to the U.S. Department of Defense.
In the Battle off Cape Engano, 843 of those aboard the Zuikaku died, while 866 were rescued, according to the Japanese think tank.
On Oct. 25, 1944, the Zuikaku sank following a barrage of attacks by the U.S. military with bombs and torpedoes. In a fateful moment, Kaneko found himself afloat among other survivors.
"There were 30 to 50 people floating around me in the ocean, grabbing onto ship wreckage like wood until destroyers and battleships came to pick us up several hours later," Kaneko recounted. "We were grabbing onto whatever we could while waiting for our ships to save us."
"While we were holding onto the wreckage, enemy planes would come by and shoot at us," the 96-year-old said while mimicking the sound of the American fighter planes.
Before his memory of the incident began to fade due to old age, he told his son, Takeshi, 65, his tale of survival.
Takeshi explained that his father and others in his group were rescued because they had not swum too far from the point where the ship sank, where they could have been strafed by U.S. military planes, nor were they so close to the ship that they were caught in the vortex created as it sunk.
The veteran recounted how warships would approach groups of dozens of people floating helplessly in the water. The vessels would carefully maneuver to rescue the survivors before moving on to save other groups.
"We gathered in a group and waited. A ship would come close to the clusters of people, and we would swim to the ship to be rescued," Kaneko recalled. "I did not know whether the ships would have stopped near us. I feel lucky today that it did," he said.
He recollects that while floating, other Japanese aircraft carriers were sunk, but he could see vessels with better maneuverability, such as destroyers, still fleeing from the enemy.
"To be honest, I was not scared to die at the moment. Maybe it was because I was a kid then," the veteran said.
Born in 1928 in Yokohama during a time of encroaching nationalism, Kaneko was drawn to the Imperial Japanese Navy out of a desire for adventure, viewing naval service as young men's ultimate expression of duty and valor.
When he was almost ready to graduate from what was called "higher primary school," which was usually around the age of 14, he saw a recruiting poster at his school and decided to join the navy. "It was a time of war. I had to join," Kaneko said.
When recruiting officers came to his home to collect him, his mother burst into tears and tried to stop them.
"She did not want me to go to war because my elder brother had already died in the war. She did not want her other son to die, too," he said. The body of his brother, who is believed to have died in a Southeast Asian country, was never recovered.
After he joined the military, he learned Morse code for about a year at a naval communications school in Yokosuka in Kanagawa Prefecture, eastern Japan, as the need for communications officers surged due to the development of radio communications technology that was increasingly being used in the military.
What haunts him more than the day of Zuikaku's demise are the beatings he and other young trainees received from higher-ranking officers who would hit them with wooden planks during the pre-war training. The practice was used as a way of instilling discipline in young recruits.
"We were beaten with a piece of wood every day during our time at the communications school," Kaneko recalled, saying that this experience was the most bitter memory of the war. "I even heard at the time that other people had committed suicide because of this."
When asked why he thinks Japan lost the war, Kaneko said it was because of that military culture, in which young noncommissioned officers were punished without reason. "I think it was only Japan that did those kinds of things," Kaneko said.
Having survived the harsh training environment and the sinking of the Zuikaku, his last active mission in the war, Kaneko returned to civilian life.
After the war, he worked for an electrical cabling company where he could utilize his skills as a navy communications officer. He had two children with his wife, to whom he was married for 60 years before her death 10 years ago.
After a long life, he can now reflect on the event that could have changed everything.
"There were others who died in the battle. I was lucky enough to be saved, but I guess it is fate," he said.
(Atsushi Takeda contributed to this report)
