Posted on 12/08/2009 12:09:56 PM PST by jazusamo
A Japanese mini-submarine, newly discovered in other underwater debris, may have capsized the battleship Oklahoma with a torpedo.
The remains of a Japanese mini-submarine that participated in the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor have been discovered, researchers say, offering strong evidence that the sub fired its torpedoes at Battleship Row.
That could settle a long-standing argument among historians.
Five mini-subs were to participate in the strike, but four were scuttled, destroyed or run aground without being a factor in the attack. The fate of the fifth has remained a mystery. But a variety of new evidence suggests it fired its two 800-pound torpedoes, probably at the battleships West Virginia and Oklahoma, capsizing the latter. A day later, researchers believe, the mini-sub's crew scuttled it in nearby West Loch.
The loch was later the site of a 1944 disaster in which six tank landing ships preparing for the secret invasion of Saipan were destroyed in an ammunition explosion that killed 200 sailors. When the Navy scooped up the remains of the so-called LSTs and dumped them outside the harbor to protect the secrecy of the invasion, it apparently also dumped the mini-sub's remains, which were mingled with the damaged U.S. ships.
"It's not often that a historian gets a chance to rewrite history," said Parks Stephenson, a marine historian and former Navy submariner, who pieced together the evidence for the PBS television program "Nova."
The episode will air Jan. 5.
"The capsizing of the Oklahoma is the second-most iconic event of the attack. If one submarine could get in, in 1941, and hit a battleship, who knows what a midget sub could do today? Iran and North Korea are both building them. It's very worrying."
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
The Navy presumably has documentation on the damage to West Virginia & Oklahoma. If they’d been hit below the keel or by impact below the water line the damage would have been unmistakeable.
I think that the Japanese had a kind of 'Beehive' round for their 18" naval gun. Don't know if it was ever fired in action.
“The Navy presumably has documentation on the damage to West Virginia & Oklahoma. If they’d been hit below the keel or by impact below the water line the damage would have been unmistakeable.”
Not really. The Japanese used aerial torpedoes at Pearl Harbor. Telling apart the damage from a sub torpedo and an aerial one would probably prove very difficult, especially at the time, when they were far more concerned with rescuing those trapped in the bottoms of the ships and/or getting them salvaged and returned to service. Those priorities vastly exceeded the need to tell the difference.
Figure 1/60th to say 1/500th of a second exposure (considering daylight, but still in a fast moving aircraft - the faster) on the picture. Probably right before any secondaries (if any from those particular torpedoes) touched off.
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If you think about the weight difference between an aerial torpedo & the sea launched variety, the damage caused by the heavier warhead should be distinguishable. The Navy had salvage divers all over those vessels carefully assessing the damage. But I confess that I don’t know much about the torpedo type carried by the mini-sub.
Yeah, but if you're a politician, you can do that all the time.
The Japanese BBs used their main guns against torpedo bombers at Midway. The idea was to raise a geyser in front of the bomber, and cause the bomber to crash when they collided with it. Apparently, it worked, too. They bagged a couple of the old Devastators from Torpedo 8 that way.
The mini-sub torpedoes were pretty darn big. The ones on the History Channel show had I think an 800lb or so warhead on them. I’m not sure what their aerial ones had, but it’s probably about that size or so. Given the state of the art in salvage diving at the time, I doubt they could have told the difference. I’d make a guess that it was more along the lines of “ That hole is about X feet across, so we’ll need a patch bigger than that...”
That’s a creative use for a BB main gun.
It’s possible that the minisubs used some sort of aerial torpedo. I’ll have to look that up. I would seriously doubt that it was a “Long Lance” — that was a big sucker. Plus they wouldn’t need that kinda range.
I hear what your saying, but at some point each of those hulls went into drydock for serious repair. Everybody got a good look at the damage when they were fully out of the water. In the case of Oklahoma — she capsized — so the extent of the damage may have been visible until she began to settle.
It sure didn’t look like the Long Lance.. that truly was a big ol’ thing. I didnt know the airplanes used the LL... I thought that was just from full-size subs and surface ships.
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