Joint service for Australian and Japanese seamen

The 21 Australian and British sailors who died aboard HMAS Kuttabul, along with six Japanese submariners, were remembered on August 6 in Sydney. HMAS Kuttabul was attacked by Japanese midget-submarines which had infiltrated Sydney Harbour in 1942. The joint memorial service, led by the Royal Australian Navy and assisted by the Japanese Embassy, included former members of the Japanese Imperial Navy and family of the Japanese war dead who had travelled from Japan.
Japanese Ambassador to Australia, Hideaki Ueda, and Japanese Consulate-General in Sydney, Tsukasa Kawada, were joined by Rear Admiral Yasushi Matsushita and Commanding Officer Shuji Ochi of the Japanese Maritime Defence Forceﾕs training squadron Kashima. The Chief of Navy, Vice-Admiral Russ Shalders AO, took part in the ceremony on behalf of the RAN.
Following the service, held at the HMAS Kuttabul memorial at Garden Island, guests were taken to where the third midget-submarine was found last year off the coastline of the northern beaches. Here, a tribute was made to submariner Lieutenant Katsuhisa Ban and his navigator Petty Officer Mamoru Ashibe, who had been lost for 64 years in Australian waters.