On the morning of March 27, at approximately 10:00, a Japanese destroyer approached the area where Kuykendall was floating.
The vessel was Wakatake.
Kuykendall had survived hours in the water, but rescue by an enemy warship carried its own dangers.
According to his later account, Japanese personnel fired machine guns in his direction, wounding him several times before taking him aboard.
He survived the gunfire.
The Japanese sailors brought him onto the vessel and took him prisoner.
Kuykendall was now the only known surviving member of Tullibee's crew.
The Japanese transferred him into their prisoner-of-war system.
By early April 1944, he was being held at the Ōfuna detention facility near Kamakura, Japan.
Ōfuna was used to interrogate captured Allied personnel, including aviators and sailors.
Conditions for prisoners could be harsh, and men held there were subjected to isolation and interrogation.
Kuykendall remained at Ōfuna until late September.
On September 30, 1944, he was transferred to Ashio, Japan.
There, he was forced to work in a copper mine.
The work was physically demanding, and prisoners faced the shortages, restrictions, and hardships characteristic of Japanese wartime captivity.
Kuykendall remained a prisoner through the final months of the Pacific War.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy had no confirmed knowledge that he was alive.
For the families of the men aboard Tullibee, the submarine's disappearance remained an unresolved tragedy.
The Navy knew the vessel had failed to return.
It did not yet know exactly how it had been lost.
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The Navy Waited for a Submarine That Would Never Return
Before departing on its final patrol, Tullibee had received instructions concerning its operating area and eventual return.
The submarine was expected to leave its patrol area no later than April 24, 1944.
On that date, the Navy sent orders directing it to proceed to Majuro for refitting.
The expected arrival date was approximately May 4.
But Tullibee did not arrive.
There was no message explaining a delay.
No report of enemy shipping.
No indication that the submarine had suffered mechanical trouble.
Because communications equipment could fail, Navy planners considered the possibility that Tullibee was returning without the ability to transmit.