Mochitsura Hashimoto

Mochitsura Hashimoto (橋本 以行, Hashimoto Mochitsura?, 1909 – 25 October 2000) was an officer and a submarine commander in the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II best known as the captain of Japanese submarine I-58, which sank the USS Indianapolis in 1945.

Born in Kyoto and educated at the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy, Hashimoto volunteered for service in submarines and was later aboard submarine I-24 during the Attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Commanding coastal patrol and training submarines off Japan for much of the war, Hashimoto took command of I-58 in 1944, a ship which was equipped to carry kaiten, or manned torpedoes. After a number of unsuccessful operations, I-58 sunk the Indianapolis on 30 July while on a midnight patrol. Hashimoto's submarine then returned to Japan, one of the few such ships to survive the war. Hashimoto was then called to testify at the court-martial of Charles B. McVay III, the Indianapolis commander, a move which was controversial at the time. He was later part of an effort to exonerate McVay. Hashimoto later became a Shinto priest and died in 2000.

Read more about Mochitsura Hashimoto:  Biography