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I-400 in 2,300 feet of water off the southwest coast of Oahu

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  • I-400 in 2,300 feet of water off the southwest coast of Oahu





    Researchers in Hawaii find lost Japanese WWII mega-sub
    By Michael Pearson | 03 December 2013 | CNN

    (HONOLULU) -- Researchers in Hawaii have found a mammoth World War II-era Japanese submarine scuttled by the U.S. Navy in 1946 to keep its advanced technology out of the hands of the Soviet Union.

    The Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory at the University of Hawaii discovered the I-400 in 2,300 feet of water off the southwest coast of Oahu, according the school.

    "Finding it where we did was totally unexpected," lab operations director and chief submarine pilot Terry Kerby said in a university statement. "All our research pointed to it being further out to sea."

    At nearly 400 feet long, the I-400 and its two sister ships were the largest submarines ever built before the nuclear age.

    Initially conceived as a weapon to target the U.S. mainland and capable of reaching any point on the globe without refueling, the subs were effectively underwater aircraft carriers outfitted with three folding-wing seaplanes capable of carrying an 1,800-pound bomb.

    The ships were never used to attack the mainland United States and saw only limited service before Japan surrendered in 1945.

    But their novel design represented a tactical shift in thinking about the use of submarines, which until then had been strictly seen as anti-ship weapons, James Delgado, director of the Maritime Heritage Program of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said in the university statement.

    "Following World War II, submarine experimentation and design changes would continue in this direction, eventually leading to ballistic missile launching capabilities for U.S. submarines at the advent of the nuclear era," Delgado told the university.

    The submarine was found in August, but the laboratory didn't notify the public until after informing the U.S. State Department and the Japanese government, the university said.

    The I-400 was one of five Japanese submarines captured by the U.S. Navy at the end of World War II and sent to Hawaii for examination, the school said.

    With tensions rising between the Soviet Union and the United States after the war, the Navy scuttled the ships to avoid their advanced technology falling into the hands of the Soviet navy in what would become one of the first intrigues of the Cold War.

    The Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory has so far found four of the ships.

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  • #2
    Damn shame they had to scuttle those subs to keep them away from the Soviets (as if they didn't already have a treasure trove of German sub tech).

    Although they probably would've just been scrapped anyway.
    “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

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    • #3
      Originally posted by TopHatter View Post
      Damn shame they had to scuttle those subs to keep them away from the Soviets (as if they didn't already have a treasure trove of German sub tech).

      Although they probably would've just been scrapped anyway.
      Much the same with the Graf Zepplin at the close of WWII. However, apparently looking from WWII foreword their carrier programs were pretty much "sub standard" compared to many other countries even know they were handed a good design with the unfinished German carrier.
      Fortitude.....The strength to persist...The courage to endure.

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      • #4
        Originally posted by Dreadnought View Post
        Much the same with the Graf Zepplin at the close of WWII. However, apparently looking from WWII foreword their carrier programs were pretty much "sub standard" compared to many other countries even know they were handed a good design with the unfinished German carrier.
        Which was subsequently sunk in the Baltic Sea under mysterious circumstances. . . . . .
        "There is never enough time to do or say all the things that we would wish. The thing is to try to do as much as you can in the time that you have. Remember Scrooge, time is short, and suddenly, you're not there any more." -Ghost of Christmas Present, Scrooge

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        • #5
          What gripes my @$$ is that the USSR DEMANDED that one of the I-400 class be turned over to them. What kind of crap is that since they didn't even declare war on Japan untill AFTER we used Atomic bombs?

          Additionally, one crew of Doolittle's raiders were able to safely land in Russia in May of 1942, but the Russians wouldn't let the crew return to America since Russia was "technically" neutral with Japan. So that B-25 crew didn't get out of the Soviet Union until the war was over.
          Able to leap tall tales in a single groan.

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          • #6
            Originally posted by Stitch View Post
            Which was subsequently sunk in the Baltic Sea under mysterious circumstances. . . . . .
            One of two reasons.....

            1) Russia was pretty much broke and couldnt forsee spending the money for upkeep when Moscow was still leveled and they definately needed rebuilding programs.

            2) Target for bombing.

            Not sure but it was rumored that when Russia took her home she was loaded with alot of farming and industrial machinery among other things to help the rebuilding and industry.
            Fortitude.....The strength to persist...The courage to endure.

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            • #7
              Next tourist stop....

              At 2,000 ft. + the sub is beyond the weekend scuba tanker.... but imagine a whole new market for tourist mini subs. :pop:


              =

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              • #8
                I recall reading somewhere that the Japanese had intended to use these subs to launch a surprise air raid on the locks of the Panama canal, but as the war started going really south for them they were recalled to defend the home islands.

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by blidgepump View Post
                  At 2,000 ft. + the sub is beyond the weekend scuba tanker.... but imagine a whole new market for tourist mini subs. :pop:
                  =
                  SIGH......only 2400ish feet. Why, that's less than half the weight of a modern sedan! That's not too much at all!

                  Of course, A and B.

                  A: The deeper one goes, not only does the pressure increase considerably.....but also the dollars it takes for what you are doing down there.

                  B: Be careful with your tourist mini subs for they may be the final death of the site. One of the people who had been to the Titanic, perhaps Ballard, noted the reduction of the wreck over the years and they believed it was in part due to more people visiting it, just by the motion of the minisubs around the wreck.

                  Now, granted, we are dealing with some vastly different variables such as 2000 ft vs 12000; a wrecked submarine vs a wrecked surface ship; something that has been down for 70 years vs 101 years; perhaps different chemistries in the bottom and so forth................but still.....................

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                  • #10
                    A little more in depth article...

                    WWII submarine found: what it was doing in underwater 'trash heap' off Hawaii (+video)
                    WWII submarine built by Japan to transport bomb-carrying planes to within striking distance of New York was captured by the US. The WWII submarine was studied and scuttled before the Soviets could get a good look.

                    For 67 years, one of the most remarkable warships to ply the Pacific during World War II has lain beneath 2,300 feet of water somewhere off the Hawaiian island of Oahu.

                    Just as the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor approaches, a fascinating find on the ocean floor. Click here to read Catherine Cruz' article. Now, marine archaeologists say they have located the vessel – a 400-foot long Japanese submarine that carried three single-engine aircraft tucked in its hangar and enough fuel to circumnavigate the Earth 1-1/2 times non-stop.

                    Japan's 400-class subs represented the largest ever built until well into the 1960s.

                    The newfound sub, designated I-400, was the first of 18 similar subs the Japanese Navy planned to build, although only three were completed. Their mission, never realized, was to take Japan's fight against the United States to US shores, initially by unleashing their planes, each carrying one 1,800-pound bomb, on New York City.

                    Their size, technology, and their missions have anointed these vessels with almost mythical status among naval historians of World War II, says James Delgado, who heads the Maritime Heritage Program at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Office of Marine Sanctuaries in Washington.

                    The discovery was announced Monday, but historians have long known about the subs, and the Navy hastily examined all three after their captains surrendered them. The I-400's sister sub, the I-401, also was found off Oahu in 2005. But discovering such vessels again – especially the first of a class – after decades of uncertainty about where they rest is important, Dr. Delgado says.

                    “The oceans are the biggest museum we have,” he says. “Whenever we find one of these things, it takes it out of the books, or off of the Internet if you will, and makes it real again.”

                    Japan was not the first country to consider using submarines as platforms for launching airplanes. During World War I, the Germans balanced a single-engine seaplane on the forward deck of a surfaced submarine. When the sub partially submerged, the seaplane floated away and took off – a proof of concept that was deemed impractical, in no small part because sub and seaplane were vulnerable to bad weather and well-placed rounds from an enemy ship.

                    Between the two World Wars, France, Italy, Britain, and the US explored the idea. But the US and Britain abandoned it after a British sub carrying a small airplane sank after water flooded in though the open hangar door. A French sub sank after it collided with a US merchant ship in the Caribbean during World War II.

                    Germany and Japan continued to develop the concept, however, although the planes were designed for reconnaissance.

                    Japan advanced the concept to carry combat aircraft, ultimately deploying three types of aircraft-bearing subs. The 400-class subs represented the most potent of the three.

                    “They were the brainchild of Admiral Yamamoto,” the commander-in-chief of Japan's Navy during the war, Delgado explains. “His plan is to go hit New York. His plan is to pay back the United States psychologically for the Doolittle raid on Tokyo.”

                    That raid, which took place in 1942, involved the launching, from an aircraft carrier, of 16 B-25 bombers designed for typical airfields on land. The raid inflicted little physical damage on Tokyo, but it boosted US morale after the debacle at Pearl Harbor and undermined the morale of the Japanese.

                    The Japanese also planned to have two of the mammoth subs attack the Panama Canal with the hope of destroying enough lock gates to drain the artificial lake that is critical to the canal's operation.

                    After the war, the US captured all three I-400 class subs, one of which had been converted into a tanker for carrying fuel. And while the terms of the agreement among the Allies at Yalta gave the Soviets access to the spoils of war captured by other countries in the Alliance, the US had no intention of letting Soviet experts pore over such advanced subs.

                    The converted tanker was sunk in the East China Sea in late 1945. The other two reached Pearl Harbor, where they were examined, then towed well out to sea and torpedoed in deep water. The Soviets, Delgado notes, were not happy campers.

                    There, the sub has rested, along with the I-401, as well as other prizes the US captured.

                    Indeed, Delgado says, the deep waters off of Pearl Harbor essentially represent the marine-archaeology equivalent of the kitchen trash for the US Navy.

                    For about a century, the US has used those waters to dump tanks, aircraft, unexploded bombs, captured prizes from naval engagements, and surplus ships it no longer needed – a 20th century version of a midden, the pile of shucked shells and gnawed or butchered bones land-based archaeologists pick through for insights into the people that left it. And many of the artifacts off of Oahu are very well preserved.

                    The August expedition that discovered the I-400 was led by Terry Kerby, operations director for the Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory at the University of Hawaii and its chief submarine pilot. He, Delgado, and Hans Van Tilburg, also with NOAA, initially went out to gauge the status of two Japanese one-man mini-subs that were sunk during and after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

                    Unlike a captured vessel, which becomes the property of the nation that captures it, ships sunk in combat remain the property of the nation that built and deployed it. The NOAA archaeologists were making the dive to check out the subs and report back to the Japanese government on their condition.

                    Over the years, Mr. Kerby has systematically hunted for ships in Pearl Harbor's midden, squeezing an extra dive or two onto his minisub's agenda when out on other assignments, Delgado says.

                    On this occasion he recalls asking Kerby if he had anything else the archaeologists would like to see. The answer: He had a couple of targets no one had explored before, based on sonar data he had collected from various sources. The first one turned out to be the USS Kailua, a ship built in the 1920s that towed the I-400 and I-401 out to be sunk, and itself was torpedoed as unneeded postwar surplus at the same time. They gingerly traversed the darkness toward the second target.

                    “Slowly, out of the gloom, comes the bow,” Delgado recalls, one that clearly belongs to a submarine. “Everybody's pulse picks up.”

                    As the sub slowly moved along the length of the vessel, the trio noted the hull's features. After analyzing the data once they got back, they realized they'd found the I-400. Among the clinchers: the sub's unique set of eight torpedo tubes, a bow sloped to serve as a launch ramp for the aircraft, and the location of a crane designed to pluck the pontooned planes out of the ocean so they could be prepared for storage on the sub.

                    Delgado and his colleagues notified the State Department, and in a meeting with US and Japanese officials in Washington turned over photos of the sunken sub and explained how they had discovered it.

                    For Delgado, the discovery highlights the fact that much remains to be uncovered beneath the seas.

                    “There's still an awful lot yet to be done and to be found,” he says. “The age of exploration isn't over. It's just beginning.”

                    WWII submarine found: what it was doing in underwater 'trash heap' off Hawaii (+video) - CSMonitor.com
                    Fortitude.....The strength to persist...The courage to endure.

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by DonBelt View Post
                      I recall reading somewhere that the Japanese had intended to use these subs to launch a surprise air raid on the locks of the Panama canal, but as the war started going really south for them they were recalled to defend the home islands.
                      You are correct; IIRC, only one of the subs (I-400?) was actually equipped with the Sieran planes, one was converted to a tanker/refueller, and the third one that was built never made it out of port before it was surrendered to US forces in 1945.
                      "There is never enough time to do or say all the things that we would wish. The thing is to try to do as much as you can in the time that you have. Remember Scrooge, time is short, and suddenly, you're not there any more." -Ghost of Christmas Present, Scrooge

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                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Dreadnought View Post
                        A little more in depth article...
                        ....Unlike a captured vessel, which becomes the property of the nation that captures it, ships sunk in combat remain the property of the nation that built and deployed it. The NOAA archaeologists were making the dive to check out the subs and report back to the Japanese government on their condition.
                        .......
                        Errrr, that's not entirely accurate. It could become the property of the succeeding nation, ie the one that won the war.

                        Ie, who does the CSS Alabama belong to? The United States.

                        So the ship of a nation that was sunk in a war and that nation is then defeated but is still around today? Then who does it belong to?

                        Well, I suppose a big question about that is if the building nation still legally existed in this day, not just in name and concept.

                        Got to run.

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Tamara View Post
                          Errrr, that's not entirely accurate. It could become the property of the succeeding nation, ie the one that won the war.

                          Ie, who does the CSS Alabama belong to? The United States.

                          So the ship of a nation that was sunk in a war and that nation is then defeated but is still around today? Then who does it belong to?

                          Well, I suppose a big question about that is if the building nation still legally existed in this day, not just in name and concept.

                          Got to run.
                          *In this instance the owner would be the US since it was war repreations and sunk by the US. In as much as the Prince Eugan belongs to the US as a war repreation. They dismantled it, inspected it and sunk it in war games in Bikinni Atoll.

                          The big difference between ownership is....They are not war graves, they contain no skeletal remains of the respective countries sailors and were forfeited at the close of WWII to the Allies while still afloat and intact.

                          The US took ownership, and sunk them after inspecting them with various weapons in testing.
                          Last edited by Dreadnought; 06 Dec 13,, 18:12.
                          Fortitude.....The strength to persist...The courage to endure.

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                          • #14
                            the only thing I see wrong, is reporting to Japan that we "re-found" it.. it's not Japanese property, and not a war grave, since there aren't any bodies buried with it..

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