Navy will close chapter on
tragic Ehime Maru story
this weekend

The vessel will be sunk 12 1/2 miles off
Kalaeloa in 8,000 feet of water

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By Gregg K. Kakesako
gkakesako@starbulletin.com

Guided by schematic drawings of the Ehime Maru and a drawing by the 6-year-old son of a school teacher killed in the accident, Navy and Japanese divers methodically spent 20 days searching the sunken vessel for nine missing people.

In the end, the bodies of all but one -- 17 year-old Takeshi Mizuguchi -- were recovered during the unprecedented $60 million underwater search.

This Thanksgiving weekend, the Navy will close the final chapter on what was one its most tragic accidents.

The Navy has told the families of the nine people who were killed during the collision that the 190-foot Ehime Maru will be taken to its final resting site 12 -1/2 miles off of Kalaeloa as early as Saturday, weather permitting. There the vessel will be left in nearly 8,000 feet of water on Sunday, marked only by a pinging signaling device.

The Ehime Maru was only taken to a site near the Honolulu Airport for the shallow water recovery operations and could not be left there because of state and federal requirements. Divers already have removed cargo and fishing nets and other debris that might be an environmental hazard and have tried to siphon off diesel fuel from the Ehime Maru's tanks. Also, removed were the ship's anchors, one of its masts, its steering wheel and other mementos which will become parts of memorials here and in Japan.

Tatsuyoshi and Yoshiko Mizuguchi, the parents of Uwajima Fisheries High School student Takeshi, plan to be here to witness the final operations. Rear Adm. William Klemm, who heads the Navy's recovery operations, has said another family also may return. He did not identify the family.

On Feb. 9, the 830-ton Ehime Maru was struck by the 6,080-ton submarine USS Greeneville while the nuclear sub was conducting an emergency-surfacing maneuver for its civilian visitors. Nine of 35 Japanese aboard the Ehime Maru were killed. Divers entered the wreck on Oct. 15 after it was moved 16 miles from the spot where it sank nine miles south of Diamond Head. The search was called off Nov. 6 after the Navy spent 333 hours combing the three levels of the ship.

Ehime Maru's captain Hisao Onishi, 59, who spent more than a month advising the U.S. Navy on its search-and-recover operation, said earlier this week: "Every time remains of another missing person were discovered, feelings such as sadness and anger welled up in me."

Onishi said he could not stop crying when he watched, on a monitor, divers from Japan's Maritime Self Defense Force place cookies that Mizuguchi's mother had made into his locker in the Ehime Maru, as well as a bouquet of flowers and incense sticks that are traditionally burned in Japan when people pray for the dead.

Onishi said he thought, "This is the end. I do not have any word to offer for his family."