Chugi Kawamura was the luckiest unlucky man in World War II. He had the most dangerous job in any theater of the war, except for perhaps a kamikaze pilot. He was the captain of a Japanese oil tanker. On December 31, 1944 he set sail from Japan in the San Diego Maru bound for Singapore to bring back a load of desperately needed oil for the faltering Japanese war machine. It was a select convoy of ten merchant ships, most of them tankers, with a very large escort of eight anti-submarine vessels. The convoy, because it was made up of such prized vessels, was also able to travel at a high speed of 12 knots, a pace which had shown itself to be of great value in the Battle of the Atlantic.

For safety, the convoy hugged the Chinese coast. Upon reaching Shanghai, it was routed to Formosa. It was on this leg of the journey that the first tanker was sunk, torpedoed by a US submarine. The convoy then took refuge in the port of Takao, but it was spotted by American carrier aircraft and three more of the precious ships were destroyed on January 9. Three hundred carrier aircraft attacked in four waves, diving low so that they were only 200 yards above the huddling ships. At least ten bombs dropped close to the San Diego Maru, some only feet away, and another vessel nearby was sunk. Kawamura himself manned the anti-aircraft guns which were now standard equipment on all Japanese tankers, and he believed that he and the other gunners were responsible for shooting down a number of the American attackers. Miraculously, the San Diego Maru was not damaged.