THE MARU-IN AND THE SHINYO EXPLOSIVE MOTOBOATS

Shinyo is a term for a type of Japanese WWII suicide motorboats. The maximum speed of such a boat reached 30 knots, and was armed with a 300 kg explosive charge and two unguided anti-ship missiles. The genesis of the Shinyo type motorboats dates back to the turn of 1943/1944, when the course of the war in the Pacific was more and more unfavorable for Japan, and high officers of the navy and air force began to see an opportunity for their country to use various types of suicide weapons, such as Kamikaze planes, Kaiten torpedoes or just Shinyo motorboats. The crew of this type of boat consisted of one man who was steering the vessel from an exposed compartment at the stern. It is estimated that around 6,200 boats of this type were built in the last period of the Pacific War. Some of them were used in combat during the fighting for Okinawa and in the Philippines.