Heaven's Will: The Attack on Ulithi Atoll, November 1944 2024

Heaven’s Will: is a solitaire game on the Japanese suicide Kaiten (Japanese for “turning heaven’s will”) mini-submarine attack on the American fleet’s anchorage at Ulithi Atoll in November, 1944. The Japanese planned the raid to disrupt the American’s upcoming invasion of the Japanese home islands. The original plan was for three submarines to ferry and launch a half dozen of the Kaiten mini-submarines at the atoll. Given the successes of the aerial Kamikaze attacks against American ships, much was expected of this underwater “special attack”.

The active player takes on the role of the Japanese Kaiten midget submarines. You must endeavor to overcome the American defenses, night-time visibility and poor pre-raid intelligence gathering to inflict as much damage as possible before being sunk or escaping.

A variant for the game, that includes 4 additional counters and 1.5 pages of rules, assumes that the March 11, 1945 Operation Tan 2, the longest range Kamikaze attack of the war, occurred at the same time as another Kaiten attack on Ulithi Atoll.

Each copy of Heaven’s Will is composed of the following:

• One 8.5 by 11 inch map with game record keeping tracks. • 29 double-sided units • 3 pages of rules

Players will also need a standard deck of playing cards and a six-sided die (D6) to play the game.

-description from designer