The Bungo Channel (豊後水道, Bungo-suidō[1]) is a strait separating the Japanese islands of Kyushu and Shikoku. It connects the Philippine Sea and the Seto Inland Sea on the western end of Shikoku.[2] The narrowest part of this channel is the Hōyo Strait.

In the English-speaking world, the Bungo Strait is most known as a setting in the 1958 World War II submarine film Run Silent, Run Deep, based upon the best-selling 1955 novel by then-Commander Edward L. Beach Jr.[3] On 9 November 1944, the USS Archerfish sank the Shinano, just nine hours into its maiden voyage in the Bungo strait. Shinano had been built in secret after being converted to a carrier, from a battleship of the Yamato class.

Notes

  1. ^ Teikoku's Complete Atlas of Japan, Teikoku-Shoin Co., Ltd., Tokyo, ISBN 4-8071-0004-1
  2. ^ Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Bungo Kaikyō" in Japan Encyclopedia, p. 91.
  3. ^ Sheffield, Richard. (2009). Subs on the Hunt: 40 of the Greatest WWII Submarine War Patrols, p. 24, at Google Books; Leeman, Sergio and Robert Wise. (1995). Robert Wise on his Films: from Editing Room to Director's Chair, p. 145.

References