Hi-tech Japanese WWII subs discovered off Hawaii
Updated
A little bit of World War II history has been rediscovered with a team from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Marine Sanctuaries in the Pacific Islands finding the final resting place of two Japanese submarines scuttled by the US Navy at the end of the conflict.
Presenter: Campbell Cooney
Speaker: Hans Van Tilburg, Maritime Heritage Coordinator with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Marine Sanctuaries in the Pacific Islands
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VAN TILBURG: The two that were recently discovered are actually part of a group of five which were brought over after the war, very advanced submarine designs which were captured by the US Navy and brought to Hawaii to be studied.
COONEY: Just reading some of the detail of them, one could carry aircraft, it had enough fuel to get around the world, is that right?
VAN TILBURG: Yes actually you know an earlier one was discovered a few years ago, the I-401, a very large submarine, and then recently two more were discovered, so three of the group of five were found and two of the subs discovered so far could carry aircraft - one could carry three and launch three attack aircraft.
COONEY: I suppose with hindsight if we'd known how valuable the history of these would be at the time that they wouldn't have been scuttled. What was the thinking at the time though, that they were just of no use to anybody?
VAN TILBURG: Well there might have been some of that but I think it was more a case of other people were interested in these submarines - the Russians our new allies and also the British - and of course after the war there was a tense period going into the Cold War. And we probably did not want the Russians to take a look at these.
COONEY: What sort of condition are they in?
VAN TILBURG: Well for being in the ocean for so long they're in very good condition. They were sunk by torpedoes so the valves had been broken off, but the rest of the submarines are intact and on the bottom and in very deep water. So it really is like a museum underneath the sea.
COONEY: How hard to get to and how hard to find out information or do any sort of research on them? Three-thousand feet, that's pretty deep?
VAN TILBURG: Well the credit really goes to the Hawaii Undersea Research Lab for this expedition, and they were kind enough to have me assist. And it took them a long while to piece together the clues to their location because they are in deep water, difficult to find, so they the Hawaii Undersea Research Lab looked for them for years actually, and were very lucky to find two more.
COONEY: What's going to be going on with them now Hans?
VAN TILBURG: Well they're resting on the sea floor and we'd just like to share this kind of heritage with the public, and there aren't any immediate plans to do any recovery which would be very costly and possibly damaging to the submarines.
COONEY: Is there any submarines like this, any Japanese submarines which have survived, which are intact and have become parts of museum pieces anywhere?
VAN TILBURG: No there are not actually, these are quite rare, there were only a few of these different types built very close to the late years of the war and all the submarines which were captured by the United States were either sunk near Japan or brought over to Hawaii and then subsequently disposed of there.
COONEY: Is there likely or do you have any leads to other wrecks like this that were scuttled at the time by the US Navy or were sunk during battles or whatever that you know where there might be others around?
VAN TILBURG: Certainly, the Pacific legacy of the war period is hard to underestimate of course and the Hawaii Undersea Research Lab, Terry Kirby and his crew are currently looking for the I-400, which is the sister submarine to the I-401, one of those three that we already know about.
COONEY: And these are the big ones again, these are the really big ones?
VAN TILBURG: Right it was the largest submarine at that time, certainly the largest thing built until we had the era of nuclear ballistic submarines, 400 feet or 122 metres long, it was very impressive and could launch three attack aircraft, a concept that was quite advanced. We don't see anything like that again until we have cruise missiles and nuclear submarines.
COONEY: I'm just trying to get my head around the big one, we talk about 400 feet, now that sounds really big to me. The idea that it's big enough to launch aircraft is hard to sort of comprehend that this sort of thing and this sort of technology was in place at the time, and it was useful, I mean and it was obviously operational, it worked, it wasn't pie in the sky sort of thing?
VAN TILBURG: That's right, it's interesting to remember, actually other navies and our own US Navy experimented with launching reconnaissance aircraft from submarine, and those were more common. However we dropped the concept and the planes that these large Japanese submarines could launch were attack planes, so they carried an 800 kilogram bomb or a torpedo, so then the ramp, the catapult ramp has to be much longer. And also to have an incredible range, these large 400 class submarines had a range of 37,500 miles, so they could literally pop up anywhere in the world and launch these planes in very short order. That's the true advantage to this stealth type of weapon.
