I-401 wreck found

Modeling Subjects Ships
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Here’s the article from AP:

WWII Japanese Submarine Found Near Hawaii

Sun Mar 20, 8:06 PM ET U.S. National - AP

HONOLULU - The wreckage of a large World War II-era Japanese submarine has been found by researchers in waters off Hawaii.

A research team from the University of Hawaii discovered the I-401 submarine Thursday during test dives off Oahu.

“We thought it was rocks at first, it was so huge,” said Terry Kerby, pilot of the research craft that found the vessel. “But the sides of it kept going up and up and up, three and four stories tall. It’s a leviathan down there, a monster.”

The submarine is from the I-400 Sensuikan Toku class of subs, the largest built before the nuclear ballistic missile submarines of the 1960s.

They were 400 feet long and nearly 40 feet high and could carry a crew of 144. The submarines were designed to carry three “fold-up” bombers that could be assembled for flight within minutes.

Kerby said the main hull is sitting upright and is in good shape. The I-401 numbers are clearly visible on the sides, and the anti-aircraft guns are in almost perfect condition, he said.

An I-400 and I-401 were captured at sea a week after the Japanese surrendered in 1945. Their mission — which was never completed — reportedly was to use the aircraft to drop rats and insects infected with bubonic plague, cholera, typhus and other diseases on U.S. cities.

When the bacteriological bombs could not be prepared in time, the mission was reportedly changed to bomb the Panama Canal.

Both submarines were ordered to sail to Pearl Harbor and were deliberately sunk later, partly because Russian scientists were demanding access to them.

The submarine found Thursday is the second Japanese vessel discovered off Oahu by the Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory. In 2002, researchers found the wreckage of a much smaller Japanese sub that was sunk on Dec. 7, 1941, off Pearl Harbor.

There’s a mess of really good photos at http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/HURL/I-401.html.

Back in '02 this same group found the midget sub that attacked Pearl Harbor and was engaged by USS Ward. Bob Ballard must have been ripping his hair out, he looked for that sub for weeks. There are pics of the minisub on their site, too.

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Thanks for posting the article.I knew that the Seiran bombers were slated to bomb the Panama Canal, but I didn’t know about the plague-ridden vermin bombs that were the original mission. Yuck!

The link you posted for photos doesn’t work. Can you update it?

Regards,

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http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/HURL/I-401.html

Sorry about that, I put a period on the end of it by mistake.

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Here’s just one image from the HURL website, so we don’t blow out the FineScale servers with a bunch of images:

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Thanks!

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So I’ve just one question, can bubonic plague live underwater?

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Since she was sunk by our Navy after we had owned her for a year, I’d say there’s zero chance there are any harmful biologicals left aboard, if there were any at all. The article does say the bio bombs couldn’t be prepared in time and the mission was changed, so it’s unlikely they were ever delivered aboard in the first place.

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Thanks for the post, thats some interesting stuff.

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One of these Carrier Subs did attack the US mainland. As far as I know, the only direct attack against USA mainland soil by an axis ship in either WWI or WWII.

One of these subs surfaced off the coast of oregon (or was it washington?) and launched its fighters, armed with incendiary bombs, intending to set alight gigantic wild fires that would rage completely out of control and cause rampant havoc. Well, they dropped their bombs, they caused fires… But it wasn’t nearly as bad as they were hoping. In fact, it gave us a cultural icon.

You know smokey the bear? How his character is based on a real bear? Yep. The fire department found a bear trying to escape the fire perched high in a tree, while fighting that same fire the Japanese carrier sub had started.

Smokey is a survivor of japanese aggression! hehe.

And of course, a few japanese balloon bombs did kill a few people here and there…

-Ben.

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If this idea of bombing the west coast with the plague ect is true how would you have liked being the captain or the crew of the sub given that mission? You orders are to take this deadly stuff into a closed enviorment for several weeks it would take to steam acroos the ocean and then fly it off the sub to bomb say San Francisco talk about suicide missions !

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Right. That was a B1 class sub, the I-25. She actually acquitted herself pretty well actually. And the bomber pilot became an ambassador of peace between our countries and an honorary citizen of one of the nearby towns. He even had some of his ashes scatered in the target area. I-25 was sunk off the New Hebrides in '43.

Here’s a page about the attack:
http://www.portorfordlifeboatstation.org/article1.html

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Very interesting indeed, thanks! [:)]

Take care,
Frank

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Sort of on topic-If this whole scenario of Japan attacking the U.S. with Bio bombs at the end of WW2 interests you-Check out Clive Cussler’s novel=BLACK WIND-The whole story is based on this history and is a fictional embellishment, but it is a great read for any undersea boat guys.

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Any chance there’s a Shieden in the hanger bay?