Pearl Harbor and the Japanese subs:

http://www.navalships.org/shipwrecks2.html

----------

http://history1900s.about.com/librar...idgetsubs1.htm

The raid on Pearl Harbor was a short episode in a very long war. But it is fair to say that rumor and speculation surround the Japanese attack more than any other battle in recent history. Mines in the channel, amphibious landings, enemy paratroopers and Japanese aircraft carriers south of Oahu were all reported by nervous Americans that morning. Crewmen from USS Phoenix even stated in the ship’s after-action report that the attacking planes had German, Japanese and American markings.

What is known today about the five Japanese midget submarines? They were launched the night before the attack from 7 to 10 miles south of Oahu by the Type-C1 fleet submarines I-16, I-18, I-20, I-22 and I-24. Given the geography, the navigation problems and the finicky nature of the small boats, the midget submarine crews faced a task requiring real courage, skill and luck if they hoped to succeed.

The low-lying entrance to Pearl Harbor would have been difficult to locate at night against the black background of the island, particularly when viewed from sea level through a small periscope. The only realistic way for a submarine crew with such limited vision to find the channel entrance in the dark was by following a ship. There were two opportunities to do that before sunrise on December 7, when Crossbill and Condor entered the channel separately between 5 and 5:30 a.m. No other ships came in until the Coast Guard cutter Tiger did so shortly before 8 a.m., although the fleet tug Keosangua left the channel shortly after 6:30 a.m. to meet the cargo ship Antares and take a barge in tow. The channel would have been easier for the midgets to locate after sunrise (about 6 a.m.), but crewmen aboard the 10 American vessels at or near the channel entrance could easily have sighted a periscope at that point. Of course, once the air attack began, a submarine could not have entered because of the likelihood that ships would be leaving the harbor through the narrow channel.

One midget submarine—designated “Midget B” by Lt. Cmdr. A.J. Stewart in a 1974 U.S. Navy Proceedings article—did manage to enter Pearl Harbor in the darkness, probably by following Crossbill or Condor, and speculation that a second midget also entered has been rampant since 1941.

Moored near the entrance to Middle Loch, the minesweeper Breese reported sighting two submarine conning towers at about 8:30 a.m., not long after the final wave of Japanese planes had attacked the harbor. The other nine ships near Breese reported sighting only one submarine. Five ships fired at the midget, and Curtiss hit it once before Monaghan rammed and depth-charged it. The crew of Breese mistook driftwood or debris for another submarine, or perhaps a buoy. That is understandable given the smoke, fear, adrenaline levels and confusion of the morning.

Shortly after 9 on December 7, the Japanese fleet submarine I-69 watched the dark skies above Pearl Harbor light up like a fireworks display from her position several miles southwest of Oahu. The midget submarine from I-16 sent two radio messages, one of which said “successful surprise attack.” The Japanese navy interpreted the message to mean that the midget had waited until night to attack and the fireworks display was the result of a ship exploding after the midget’s torpedo hits.

Based on vague evidence (explosions seen from a distance and unclear radio messages), the Japanese concluded that several midgets had penetrated Pearl Harbor and one of them attacked a battleship. They identified Arizona as the ship attacked by the midget sub. However, the fireworks that I-69’s crew saw over Pearl Harbor that night were actually the product of nervous crews on various American ships in the harbor, startled when planes from Enterprise tried to land at Ford Island. Some of those planes went down in flames, adding to the display.

A captured Japanese chart accounts for another myth. Submarine I-24 launched her midget, Ha-19 (“Midget C”), later than the others because the midget had a faulty gyroscope. Her young skipper, Ensign Kazuo Sakamaki, chose to go anyway. Unfortunately for Sakamaki, his submarine had handling and navigation problems from the start of the mission. After a day of being lost, depth-charged and grounded on reefs, Midget C drifted through the night, finally washing ashore near Bellows Field, on the eastern side of Oahu. The dazed Sakamaki was captured after he tried unsuccessfully to destroy his boat, becoming the first Japanese prisoner captured by Americans during the war. The chart recovered from Midget C shows a track around Ford Island, complete with headings and times marking turns. However, the track and notes on the chart indicate that it was a planning tool for the midget submarine portion of the attack rather than a record of what one of the midgets actually did. The chart shows the midgets rounding Hospital Point at 4:30 a.m. Tokyo time (9 a.m. in Hawaii) and traveling counterclockwise around Ford Island. That plan meant that the torpedo bombers would have finished their attacks before the midget submarines approached Battleship Row, lessening the chance of one being hit by a torpedo intended for an American battleship. Thus, the chart led to mistaken assumptions.

Russ Hamacheck’s book, Hot, Straight, and True, contains the humorous story of another false submarine report two weeks after the Japanese attack, when PT-28 and another PT-boat were notified about a sound contact in Pearl Harbor. The PT-boat crews dropped a lot of depth charges on the spot, only to find out later that it was a cast iron sewer pipe running under the harbor from the Navy hospital. Water running through the pipe when toilets were flushed had caused the noise reported as a sound contact by the yard boat. Ensign Bob Williamson, skipper of PT-28, reported that the sewer pipe was destroyed.

The argument that everyone was watching the attacking planes and failed to see the submarine is not credible. There were more than 40 reported submarine sightings and contacts, at least 11 of which were inside the harbor, by crewmen aboard 25 ships and three PBYs, as well as by two medical corpsmen at Hospital Point. When a midget submarine actually did appear in the harbor, eight ships sighted it immediately and five ships opened fire before Monaghan sank it. Obviously, not everyone was looking at the sky.

__________________