Posted on 08/29/2002 11:13:48 AM PDT by Asmodeus
HONOLULU, Aug. 28 Researchers said Wednesday they found a Japanese midget submarine sunk more than an hour before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Discovery of the 78-foot vessel could provide the first physical evidence to back U.S. military assertions that it fired first against Japan in World War II and inflicted the first casualties.>p>
THE SUB was sunk by a Navy destroyer on Dec. 7, 1941. Two Japanese crewmen are believed still inside the submarine.
Its the shot that started World War II between the Americans and the Japanese, said John Wiltshire, associate director of the Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory, which found the sub. The two-man submarine was discovered unexpectedly at a depth of 1,200 feet and a few miles from Pearl Harbor by research craft making test dives, he said.
The sub led four other Japanese midget submarines to Pearl Harbor to take part in the attack. The newly discovered sub was believed to be the one sunk by the destroyer USS Ward before the attack began. Wiltshire said the crew is certain that this sub was sunk by the Ward because of a bullet hole in the conning tower and because it still has both torpedoes. Three of the subs have been previously accounted for; the remaining sub had fired both of its weapons.
Until the submarine was found, historian Daniel Martinez said eyewitness accounts were unconfirmed. Martinez, a historian for the USS Arizona Memorial, has interviewed the crew who fired the first shot, and a pilot who saw the submarine sink. What they saw and what they felt was their recollection, now the proof has been found, he said.
The submarines entry into the harbor was followed by the Sunday morning attack by Japanese planes that lasted two hours and left 21 U.S. ships heavily damaged, 323 aircraft damaged or destroyed, 2,390 people dead and 1,178 other wounded.
Terry Kerby, chief pilot of the deep-diving submersible that found the submarine, said it was covered in growth but was in excellent condition. To actually come across it was a sobering moment, realizing that was the shot that started the Pacific war, he said.
This is one of the two University of Hawaii deep diving submersibles that discovered a sunken Japanese midget submarine a few miles from Pearl Harbor.
Kerby and other researchers have been conducting dives in the area since the 1980s, and have always known the sub was somewhere out there. Wiltshire described the area as an underwater military junkyard. To actually come across it was a sobering moment, realizing that was the shot that started the Pacific war. The thing is quite difficult to find because of all the massive amounts of junk out in the area, and we were simply fortunate because weve run our test and training dives through here and know where a lot of the junk is, Wiltshire said.
The submarine was the focus of a National Geographic expedition in 2000. A team of deep-water researchers led by undersea explorer Robert Ballard spent 10 days searching for the Japanese sub, using remotely operated imaging vehicles. Ballard is best known for finding the remains of the Titanic, Bismarck and Yorktown, along with the recent discovery of PT-109, the torpedo boat commanded by John F. Kennedy during World War II and sunk near the Solomon Islands.
My thoughts, exactly.
This "historian" seems to think that if the US had not sunk this submarine an hour before the Japanese attack, that the hundreds of Japanese Zero's would have all turned around and gone home.
Who does he think he is fooling?
At 1100 next morning (12 December 1937) Panay and the three tankers anchored near Hoshien, upstream from Nanking. American flags were hoisted on their masts and painted on the awnings and topsides. The day was clear, sunny and still. Panay's ate their Sunday dinner and secured. No guns were manned or even uncovered. Shortly after 1330, three Japanese Navy bombing planes flew overhead and released eighteen bombs, one of which disabled Panay's forward 3-inch gun, wrecked the pilothouse, sick bay and fire room, wounded the captain (Lieutenant Commander J.J. Hughes) and several others. Immediately after, twelve more planes dive-bombed and nine fighters strafed, making several runs over a space of twenty minutes. She fought back with her .30-cal. machine guns. By 1406 all power and propulsion were lost, the main deck was awash and, as Captain Hughes saw that his ship was going down, he ordered her to be abandoned. Japanese planes strafed the boats on their way to shore, and even combed the reeds along the riverbank for survivors. Two of the three oil barges were also bombed and destroyed. The Panay survivors, kindly treated by the Chinese, managed to get word through to Admiral Yarnell and were taken on board U.S.S. Oahu and H.M.S. Ladybird two days later. Two bluejackets and one civilian passenger died of their wounds; eleven officers and men were seriously wounded.[14]
Mr. Grew, who remembered the Maine, at first expected his country to declare war. But the promptness and apparent sincerity with which the Japanese government and people apologized and expressed their readiness to make what reparation they could, turned away wrath. The Japanese official inquiry resulted in the face-saving explanation that the attack was all a mistake; ships emblazoned with American flags had been mistaken for Chinese at 600 yards' range; it was just to bad. A United States naval Court of Inquiry at Shanghai brought out unmistakable evidence that the sinking was deliberate. But the United States government was so anxious to avoid war that it accepted the "mistake" theory, together with an indemnity. When it did so, a sigh of relief passed over the length and breadth of America.[15] In a Gallup poll conducted during the second week of January 1937, 70 per cent of the American voters who were interviewed and had an opinion on the subject favored a policy of complete withdrawal from China -- Asiatic Fleet, Marines, missionaries, medical missions, and all.[16]
Apparently no American except Mr. Grew remembered the Maine.
[12] Panay of 450 tons was 191 ft. long and carried two 3-inch and ten .30-cal. machine guns.
[13] Annual Report of Navy Department 1930 p. 99.
[14] Account by Mr. George Atcheson Jr., Second Secretary of the American Embassy, who was a passenger; report of Court of Inquiry held by order of Admiral Yarnell on Board U.S.S. Augusta off Shanghai 23 Dec. 1937, printed in Foreign Relations, Japan 1931-1941 I 532-47.
[15] Same, p. 559; Grew Ten Years in Japan pp. 232-42. The allegations of Hashimoto's responsibility were obtained by Mr. Hallert Abend of the New York Times and other American newspaper correspondents, and transmitted to me by Admiral Yarnell in 1947. Note: But for an excellent Japanese account of this affair, see Commander Okumiya "How the Panay Was Sunk," U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings pp. 587-96 (June 1953). The author, whose plane squadron led the dive-bombing attack, makes out a good case for the fliers who neither recognized Panay nor were informed of the gunboat's presence in the vicinity. The strike was made on the basis of army intelligence, not on the orders of Colonel Hashimoto; the Japanese naval aviators thought they were bombing enemy troops escaping up-river in Chinese merchant ships.
[16] The vote was about 3 to 1 for complete withdrawal in eight West Central States; 2 to 1 in New England and the Pacific Coast. American Institute of Public Opinion, 16 Jan 1938.
One of the weirdest myths of WWII is the idea that the Flying Tigers were fighting BEFORE Pearl Harbor.
They didn't enter combat until AFTER Pearl Harbor; never fired a shot in anger before Pearl Harbor.
I think the myth comes from a horrendously bad John Wayne movie about the Flying Tigers, the name of which escapes me....was it just "The Flying Tigers?"
Interestingly, the Flying Tigers NEVER, EVER encountered a SINGLE Japanese Zero, another fact that people treat with complete disbelief; they fought only against the Japanese Army and most of their kills were bombers, obsolete fixed landing gear Japanese Army Fighters, with a handful of kills of more modern (but still not as good as the Zero) Japanese Army retractable-gear fighters.
You have just unleashed a 300 post thread.
A whole Japanese task force steams within striking distance of Pearl Harbor, launches heavily armed planes, and a few mini subs, loaded with torpedos. It takes them weeks to get into position: the mini subs being launched well ahead of the carrier planes,because of their speed differences.
The author seems to be saying-because we sank one of the attacking subs before the actual bombing started, we started WW II !!!
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