At rest for 70 years ... the mini-submarine M24.
HIS assignment was critically dangerous - but not a suicide mission. Nonetheless, as the young Japanese sailor Mamoru Ashibe prepared for a midnight submarine strike on Sydney Harbour in 1942, he wrote a letter to his mother insisting she must not weep when she heard he was dead.
For 70 years, the remains of Petty Officer Ashibe and Sub-Lieutenant Katsuhisa Ban have lain entombed in the hull of the mini-submarine M24 in deep waters five kilometres off Sydney's northern beaches.
But the historic site will soon be opened up to recreational divers with the state government expected to announce today that access restrictions have been lifted after negotiations with Japanese authorities.
The decision commemorates the anniversary of the lethal submarine attack that brought war to a sleepy Sydney Harbour and killed 21 Allied seamen on May 31 and June 1, 1942, triggering public hysteria and revealing the vulnerability of the nation's ports.
Divers will be invited to enter a ballot for the chance to visit the 55-metre deep site, one of the world's few intact midget submarine wrecks at a diveable depth.
Controlled diver access will be trialled over several days this year. If successful, it could become an annual event.
The sailors' families have consented to the site being opened to the public. The enclosed craft is thought to contain personal items such as samurai swords, good luck charms and board games, as well as unexploded demolition charges buried safely under sand.
Of the three midget subs to infiltrate the harbour that night, the M24 was the only one to achieve its mission. Two others were scuttled.
Ban, 23, and Ashibe, 24 - elite, highly trained navigators - slipped past nets and lookout boats to launch two torpedoes at the American cruiser USS Chicago, moored off Garden Island. One struck a wall under HMAS Kuttabul, killing 19 Australians and two Britons.
As the harbour ignited with bullets and depth-charge explosions, Ban and Ashibe expertly steered the M24 out of the chaos to rendezvous with a mother sub near Broken Bay.
But they made it only halfway - either running out of air, succumbing to fumes or committing suicide before their inevitable deaths, said the state maritime archaeologist Tim Smith.
"It's quite remarkable when you think about what must have been going on in the submarine at that time," he said. "This wreck is the last element of that attack force, still in its original 1942 battle context. It has very powerful value."
The fate of the M24 was one of the nation's most enduring naval mysteries until it was discovered off the coast of Bungan Head, near Newport, in 2006.
An exclusion zone of 500-metre radius monitored by a long-range camera protects the wreck.
Hidehiro Ikematsu, of the Japanese embassy, said his government supported the plan, "provided the site continues to be managed properly … [and] due respect be given to the remains".
The Heritage Minister, Robyn Parker, will unveil a plaque at north Mona Vale headland today.
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