Japan's WW II super-submarine found scuttled off Hawaii

cbcnews ^ | Posted: Dec 03, 2013 10:29 AM ET | Thomson Reuters

[Utilizer]

Scientists plumbing the Pacific Ocean off the Hawaii coast have discovered a Second World War era Japanese submarine, a technological marvel that had been preparing to attack the Panama Canal before being scuttled by U.S. forces.

The 122-metre "Sen-Toku" class vessel — among the largest pre-nuclear submarines ever built — was found in August off the southwest coast of Oahu and had been missing since 1946, scientists at the University of Hawaii at Manoa said.

The I-400 and its sister ship, the I-401, which was found off Oahu in 2005, were able to travel one and a half times around the world without refuelling and could hold up to three folding-wing bombers that could be launched minutes after resurfacing, the scientists said.

The accidental discovery of the I-400, an aircraft-toting I-400 mega sub, on the rock- and debris-littered ocean floor, some 701 metres beneath the surface, has solved the mystery surrounding a ship long thought to be farther afield.

-snip-

U.S. forces sank the submarines and claimed to have no information on their precise location, in an apparent bid to prevent their technology falling into the hands of the Soviet Union, which had demanded the ships be returned to Japan.

[bigheadfred]

agree on point but not in the spirit of things but then agin what you dont know means the government will hurt you

[Hardraade]

Ah. The turkey class.

[Utilizer]

*laugh* Thank you very much for the picture you posted. I have to admit however on a totally separate topic... I looked at the pic and immediately flashed on every news report I had viewed on the telly over the last decade with all the “rad” “dudes” wearing exactly the same style of baggy “shorts” at the beaches or in the public parks -and had to guffaw at how they somehow think it is now today’s height of fashion to be wearing such obviously identical attire. *grin*

[mylife]

Extremely cool!

Sayonara!

[The Antiyuppie]

“One scuttles one’s own ship. The enemy doesn’t scuttle you — they sink you.”

Well, if we won the war, technically, they were surrendered, and were “ours”. In the not too distant past, it was fairly common for the victors to actually re-flag and utilize the spoils of war. These days, of course, these goodies generally can’t be integrated into the victor’s command/control/support systems and are destroyed or possibly sold/given to others.

I do know that after the war, a lot of people in the Navy came back with some Very Cool Stuff taken from ships about to be scrapped (like deck-mounted binoculars, which were awe-inspiring in their optical quality).

[mylife]

It was a pretty cool concept.

[cynwoody]

Good Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-400-class_submarine

Yamamoto’s brainchild. Two boats, the I-400 and I-401, were built and launched and later sunk as targets off Hawaii by the US Navy. A third, the I-402, was converted to a tanker submarine and was about to be launched when the war ended. It was sunk as a target off the Goto Islands in the East China Sea on 1 April 1946. A fourth, the I-404 (the I-403 was canceled), was 95% complete when the war ended. It was heavily damaged in an air raid on 28 July 1945 and later scuttled. It was salvaged and scrapped in 1952.

[GeronL]

The French, Italians, US and British all played with the idea.

HMS M2

of course, nobody else thought of carrying multiple bombers

[Liberty Valance]

bump

[GeronL]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_aircraft_carrier

apparently there were more than just a couple of these, there were other types than carried one and then two planes.

[mylife]

Ballistic missiles changed everything.

[GeronL]

yep

[TigersEye]

One in the submarine class remains missing.

Ragnar Danneskjold knows nothing about that.

[Jet Jaguar]

That is amazaing.

Thanks.

[mylife]

Geronl found some film of the scuttling.

[Cold Heart]

Thanks for posting that.

There was an immense amount of ocean dumping of really neat stuff after the war was over.

[Jet Jaguar]

Thanks.

[doorgunner69]

over the last decade with all the “rad” “dudes” wearing exactly the same style of baggy “shorts” at the beaches or in the public parks -and had to guffaw at how they somehow think it is now today’s height of fashion to be wearing such obviously identical attire

Yabbut, do they have those cool huge rubber boots to go with the shorts?

FWIW, loose shorts work very well in warm weather. It is the only attire I wear other than tee shirts and slippers (flip-flops for you mainland types).

Spend some time doing anything active in the desert in summer in long pants and then change to shorts.

All it will take to see the light. Had to work out at Ft Irwin in the summer a few years. It was insane how much more comfortable it was if you could expose some skin to help sweat evaporation.

[Utilizer]

I spent a lot of time in the Far East and the Pacific Islands. The attire I wore most was generally a thin shirt or tee-shirt of some kind since air-conditioning was only for the very rich who could afford personal generators for when the daily power brownouts and blackouts would kick in, and cutoff old jeans that had gotten too holey for normal wear, and were no more than a couple of inches below pocket level so the inner pocket pouches were in no danger of accidental damage.

Knee-length half-trousers were a waste of material and only the old fogeys that still wore mostly full-body "swimsuits" wore them. Think of all the original Bond movies and most especially the ones that came out in the seventies and that is the much-less heat-trapping styles that worked the best in such hot and humid environments.

[Utilizer]

Too true. I had heard of Midget subs before, but one capable of carrying a couple of flyable bombers and could go around the world one and a half times without refueling? Astounding.