Not sure how the Japanese financed their early war effort
Dig a little further back in history, you will find after they acquired and began developing modern weapons technology they stepped up their expansionism from the 1870's forward. They were systematically sacking up weaker Asian nations long before the adventure in China. Basically they did it mafia style - nice little country you got there, be a shame if it got shelled, bombed & invaded, here, sign onto this Pact with us. Japan gathered up a whole bunch of nervous new best friends forever like that. That was the genesis of their Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere plan. When WW2 ended a heck of a lot people got freed out from under Japanese despotism in the East.
I can’t imagine the frustration of the men in those subs when their only weapon was a dud.
They compensated by popping up, loosening up the deck gun and bringing out the small arms for some surface shoot'em up action against something vulnerable. Bit risky but better than nothing. Those guys were burning to contribute their part and if it took going topside to trade shots, so be it was the way they felt.
Those dud torpedoes did create some interesting war stories though. I don't recall the place, the ship or the action, but there was a trashed and sinking Jap ship that was being abandoned. A crewman who had jumped over the side was bobbing along contemplating his fate when a US torpedo came zooming in, essentially to finish the sinking ship off in spectacular fashion. The Jap crewman thought oh crap, this is it, since he was floating right by where the torpedo was going to hit. It was swimming straight & true, perfect shot. It slammed into the side of the ship, the warhead broke off and sank, while the main body remained floating like a piece of styrofoam. The crewman thought what the heck, swam on over and used it for a flotation device until he got picked up later. I don't think our torpedoes being used as lifesavers for enemy sailors was part of the intended design, but there it was.
Another story I know of is very illustrative of the sort of trouble caused by dud torpedoes. A US sub encountered a Jap sub, that was expected to be going through the area according to the code breakers if I recall correctly, putt-ing along on the surface with a good part of the crew sunbathing, eating, reading and goofing off in general. What a setup! Our guys made an easy plot and fired one torpedo submerged. It ran perfectly, and *THUNK* right onto the side of the Jap sub, with nothing happening. That was a 10 alarm OH CRAP moment right there - while the Japs were investigating what hit the side of their boat our guys scrambled to get another shot off, firing a spread from the remaining loaded tubes, blowing the Jap sub to smithereens that time. So they ended up firing 4 torpedoes for what should have taken just one - but they had no choice, they had to be sure since they weren't interested in playing cat & mouse with another sub way out in the middle of nowhere.
The unreliability of those torpedoes created a nasty dilemma for the skippers - they'd get griped at for not firing enough and getting results, then get griped at for firing so many at once. The penny pinchers were also chiming about how much that sort of "waste" was costing. What else were they supposed to do - if a really juicy target was found the best tactic was to fire a spread - sometimes multiple - and MAYBE there would be a live one in the bunch that would actually go off and do some damage. Absolute travesty our submariners had to put up with that kind of frustrating static.
“That was the genesis of their Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere plan.”
And now the Chinese are economically enslaving nations with their Belt and Road program. Some things never change. Just the methods.
I had read somewhere that early in the war sub skippers were accused of fudging the numbers on tonnage of vessels sunk.
Maybe one or two did but I expect the vast majority bitched and complained about the faulty fish.
With space at a bare minimum even one faulty torpedo was a major waste.
Once the torpedoes were finally fixed the US subs sank everything in their patrol area. They were so effective they were reduced to sinking fishing ships by wars end.
Submariners were a different breed.
My favorite was the Barb and it’s skipper Commander Eugene Fluckey. Fluckey had his own ideas about submarine warfare and was itching to try them out. He had a cast of characters on his boat who shared his sense of adventure. They included his COB Paul “Swish” Saunders and 3rd class Electricians Mate Bill Hatfield of Hatfield and McCoy fame.
On the boats 11th, and next to last, patrol Fluckey took his boat into Namkwan Harbor, only 6 fathoms deep, on the China coast. The Barb fired all four forward tubes, turned and fired all four aft tubes. They then raced for open water. Japanese defenders were firing at planes that weren’t there because they “knew” the harbor was too shallow for a submarine to sneak into.
For it’s final patrol the Barb took on 72 MK10 rockets and fashioned firing tubes to the forward gun mount.
On patrol the Barb slipped into the jJapanese harbor of Shari and fired a dozen rockets into the factory district. The first known use of rockets by a submarine.
Later the skipper put a landing party ashore to blow up a train. COB Saunders and Hatfield fashioned a mine out of a scuttling charge and a pressure switch. Barb became the first submarine to blow up a train.