Oral History Interview with Taisuke Maruyama, September 29, 2000

Transcript of an oral interview with Taisuke Maruyama. He was born in 1922. After finishing the sixth grade, Mr Maruyama took an exam for Navy pilot school and passed; he was 15 or 16 at the time. At that time, preparatory flight school (navy basic training) for the Navy was one and one half years. Once he completed this, Maruyama entered flight training, which lasted for one year. After flight training, he was ordered to the carrier Hiryu; to be a scouting member of the 97th torpedo plane, a Kate. He was not assigned as a pilot but as a scout. In July/August 1941, the Hiryu escorted the invasion fleet when the Japanese Army landed in French Indo-China. Mr Maruyama saw his first combat on December 7, 1941 at Pearl Harbor; the first wave (183 planes). His target was the USS Oklahoma and he had the job of releasing the torpedo; it hit. He was 19 years old. After the attack, the carriers returned to their own harbors and the planes went to bases. Mr Maruyama states that either the pilot or the scout could be the leader on the plane. At Midway, he was still a scout but was the leader (telling the pilot where to go, where to turn). They first attacked Sand Island. Mr Maruyama talks about the Hiryu being attacked but they were not concentrated and made by less well-trained pilots; none damaging the Hiryu. He also talks about first loading torpedoes, then bombs, and then rearming with torpedoes; lots of confusion when they heard the news that there was an American Task Force in the area. He states that he attacked the Yorktown but thought it was a different carrier. Mr Maruyama discusses the two attack units (on the Yorktown) from the Hiryu and the aircraft that returned to the carrier. The interview ended there; evidently Mr Maruyama ran out of time