PICTURES: WWII "Samurai Subs" Found -- Carried Aircraft

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PICTURES: WWII "Samurai Subs" Found -- Carried Aircraft



ON TV Hunt for the Samurai Subs premieres Tuesday, November 17, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on the National Geographic Channel. Preview Samurai Subs >>

November 12, 2009--After 60 years in a watery Hawaiian grave, two World War II-era Japanese attack submarines have been discovered near Pearl Harbor, marine archaeologists announced today. (Watch video of the sunken subs.)

Specifically designed for a stealth attack on the U.S. East Coast--perhaps targeting Washington, D.C., and New York City--the "samurai subs" were fast, far-ranging, and in some cases carried folding-wing aircraft, according to Dik Daso, curator of modern military aircraft at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum, speaking in the new National Geographic documentary Hunt for the Samurai Subs.

When World War II ended in 1945, the U.S. Navy seized the Japanese fleet in the Pacific, including five samurai subs, as they're called in the new film. The subs were later sunk, to keep the technology out of the hands of the Soviet Union.The military didn't record where the boats had been laid to rest, thinking no one would want to know.

Since 1992 archaeologist Terry Kerby and colleagues at the Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory have hunted for the samurai subs in manned submersibles. The crew found the I-401 in 2005 (pictured, a close-up of the submarine's guns). Then, in February of this year, they found two more subs, the I-14 and I-201. The I-400--one of the largest non-nuclear submarines ever built--and the I-203 remain missing.

"It's very moving to see objects like this underwater, because it's a very peaceful environment, but these subs were designed for aggression," said the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Hans Van Tilburg, who accompanied the expedition. The work was partially funded by the National Geographic Channel. (The National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News and part-owns the National Geographic Channel.)

The results of the sub surveys are "information we're sharing across the Pacific," Van Tilburg added, noting how much has changed politically since World War II. "It's part of that reconciliation, to do a peaceful survey of these secret weapons."

--Christine Dell'Amore
—Image courtesy Wild Life Productions

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Two bombers inside the samurai sub I-14's watertight hangar (pictured in a computer-generated cutaway image) could catapult off the deck within minutes of surfacing, say archaeologists who found the wreck of the World War II Japanese submarine off Hawaii in February 2009.

In dry dock the I-14 submarine stood almost four stories high and, at 375 feet (114 meters), was longer than a football field. The Japanese aircraft-carrying submarine held up to three folding-wing float planes armed with 1,800-pound (816-kilogram) bombs.

That a submarine could have bombing capability was an idea well ahead of its time, said NOAA's Van Tilburg. "That concept is so powerful, because essentially that's what we have today," he said, referring to modern submarines armed with guided missiles.

Of the 1946 sinking of the I-14, which he filmed, retired U.S. Navy Chief Charles Alger says in the November 2009 documentary: "It was very sickening--the moment of the explosion. But like any good sailor, a job is done, and we've done it."

ON TV Hunt for the Samurai Subs premieres Tuesday, November 17, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on the National Geographic Channel. Preview Samurai Subs >>
—Image courtesy Wild Life Productions

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Part of Japan's Sen Taka class--the fastest submarines of World War II--the I-201 could go 22 miles (35 kilometers) an hour underwater.

I-200-class subs could also dive deeper than any other Japanese submarine and stay underwater for up to a month, say archaeologists who rediscovered the I-201 deep off Hawaii in February 2009.

A sleek conning tower, retractable deck guns (pictured extended in a computer image), and retractable diving planes (not pictured), which help pitch the submarine toward the surface or the seafloor, helped streamline the boat for utmost speed.

NOAA's Van Tilburg said the samurai subs now belong to the ocean and that people should protect the relics as they would reefs and wildlife.

"It is a very fitting place for them. It's dark and quiet, it's deep and cold--they can rest there for quite a while."

ON TV Hunt for the Samurai Subs premieres Tuesday, November 17, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on the National Geographic Channel. Preview Samurai Subs >>
—Image courtesy Wild Life Productions