In a gesture of reconciliation hoping to appease antipathy in Japan toward US forces, Scott Waddle also met and apologised to four former students who survived the accident.

"I wish I were in the ship, too, when it went under," a tearful Waddle was quoted as telling the youngsters, according to a doctor who attended the meeting in Uwajima, some 700 kilometres (430 miles) southwest of Tokyo.

The 6,080-tonne submarine USS Greeneville accidentally rammed the school's 499-tonne training vessel, Ehime Maru, in February 2001 as the nuclear-powered submarine performed a rapid-surfacing drill off Hawaii.

The drill was a demonstration for civilian guests onboard the submarine. The accident added fuel to Japanese mistrust of the US military following rapes and other crimes committed by US servicemen on the southern island of Okinawa.

Five adult crew members and four students from Uwajima Fisheries High School died in the accident. Another 26 people aboard the Japanese training ship survived.

"I felt the grief of the survivors and the families of those who were lost at sea," Waddle told reporters Sunday, summing up the first day of the trip that took 22 months to materialise.

Waddle was stripped of his position as Greeneville captain and reassigned to a desk job by the US Navy before he was discharged last September, his rank of commander intact.

He was reprimanded by the US Pacific Fleet commander, Admiral Thomas Fargo, but was discharged honourably and is entitled to a pension and other privileges.

Clad in a black suit and tie and accompanied by a US lawyer, Waddle laid a wreath of white lilies at a cenotaph built on the high school grounds for the victims, television footage showed.

He bowed in front of nine pillars that represented the dead, and read out in a low voice a message written on a small piece of paper.

Waddle observed a minute's silence, swallowing a number of times.

"I said each person's name because I wanted them to be remembered," Waddle recalled in his remarks to reporters, adding he hoped his visit would help lessen the suffering of the survivors.

He met four survivors who have been treated for post-traumatic stress, according to their doctor, Masaharu Maeda.

In the 30-minute meeting, the survivors demanded an explanation for the accident and briefed Waddle on their symptoms. Waddle offered a letter of apology addressed to the survivors, the doctor said.

The US navy last month signed a compensation deal with all 26 survivors and relatives of seven of the dead, in a deal reportedly worth nearly 14 million dollars.

Relatives of the other two people killed are still negotiating their compensation, and have demanded Waddle's visit to Japan as part of their reconciliation.

"Scott wishes to convey his sincere apology and express his own personal grief for the accident," Waddle's lawyer Charles Gittins was quoted as saying by the Kyodo news agency before their departure for Japan.

"Scott understands the importance in Japanese culture of an apology and he intends to deliver that apology personally in accordance with his promise," he added.

SPACE.WIRE