That is an interesting discovery. Did you see the National Geographic search? It amazed me that anything survives among all that junk. Have they ever concluded if any of the midget subs entered the harbor and fired torpedoes? Most sources I read kinda blow it off as possible but highly improbable. If you ever go to Oahu and see the width of the mouth of the entrance, you can appreciate how narrow it is and how tough it would be to get through.
DJ

Steve--the use of the subs was controversial to the plannners also. In the war games, the IJN always lost several ships to the Americans. So, some "wise" planner decided to forestall a pursuit by the American fleet by inserting midget sub into the equation. When you see the mouth of the Harbor it is amazing narrow. I sat there one day and thought the passing FFG was going to plow directly into the bank. So I can see how sinking a ship would have caused damage. As I recall, the one sub tries to follow a ship (either a garbage scow or a tug) into the Harbor. This is the one that the Ward shoots at and apparently hit. The other scatter in various locations. They ground one over at Bellows which is a fair distance from Pearl. Navigation must have been a real challenge. I am hoping that COB will comment. He forgot more about subs than I'll ever know. I will defer and look forward to that fine gentleman's commentary...
DJ

Going back to our earlier discussions, it always amazes me that the Japanese tried to use subs to get into the harbor. If suprise was so important on December 7, why risk trying to take a mini-sub into one of the busiest harbors in the Pacific?

This is something that has never made much sense to me. Maybe someone out there can clear it up.

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Going back to our earlier discussions, it always amazes me that the Japanese tried to use subs to get into the harbor. If suprise was so important on December 7, why risk trying to take a mini-sub into one of the busiest harbors in the Pacific?

This is something that has never made much sense to me. Maybe someone out there can clear it up.

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COB---don't they have one of the Japanese midget sub in New London? Seems to me I saw one in my travels. I recall how small it looked on the outside, the torpedoe warheads were exposed from the tubes. I am think of the drag that much weight caused. I looked up a refernce this afternoon and it pointed out the difficulties of navigating that bugger before the days of GPS. If nothing else, those guys were truly gutsy.
DJ

No one has ever proved that any of those subs actually made it into the harbor. As to why they would even attempt it I can think of a couple of reasons.

1. If your Navy is getting ready to conduct an attack on this scale and you are in charge of (fill in the blank) weapons platform, you would do everything you could to get a piece of the action. It doesn't make sense but it can and does happen.

2. Pearl is relatively shallow and visual detection would be a problem ...today. In 1941, ships routinely discharged oil and raw sewage overboard in port for the simple reason that the ships had no holding tanks and we didn't even know how to spell environment . Depending on the tide (flood,slack or ebb, the water could have been very murky allowing a relatively small vessel to infiltrate. I've heard that much larger vessels have operated submerged in tighter quarters. The entrance is fairly narrow and the water is not too deep but if someone was determined to get in there and complete a miision they felt was important it could be done.

3. Imagine what damage they could have accomplished during and after the air attack amidst all the confusion. Several more ships could have been sunk and valuable after action intelligence gathered.

Having said all that, I don't think any midget subs got in that day. At least one was sunk and several beached. One of the beached subs was used later as backfill by construction crews who were building a new pier at the subase.

v/r,
Cob

Just a thought - maybe the subs planned to use the narrow entrance to the harbour to their advantage. If they waited outside the entrance and sank the first ship trying to leave harbour, that would essentially block the way and trap remaining ships in harbour. Bottling up the navy for some period of time.

arawata

No one has ever proved that any of those subs actually made it into the harbor. As to why they would even attempt it I can think of a couple of reasons.

...

2. Pearl is relatively shallow and visual detection would be a problem ...today. In 1941, ships routinely discharged oil and raw sewage overboard in port for the simple reason that the ships had no holding tanks and we didn't even know how to spell environment . Depending on the tide (flood,slack or ebb, the water could have been very murky allowing a relatively small vessel to infiltrate. I've heard that much larger vessels have operated submerged in tighter quarters. The entrance is fairly narrow and the water is not too deep but if someone was determined to get in there and complete a miision they felt was important it could be done.

v/r,
Cob

Well, DJ, I'll suggest that if the warnings had been properly heeded the results would still have been similar. Lots of ship sunk and airplanes blown up. However, a US military establishment on alert would probably have inflicted somewhat greater losses on the attackers. Not enough to radically alter the outcome, though, IMO. We had no combat experience, had generally inferior weapons, and training that was not yet adequate. I would guess that more AA fire and more fightere in the air would have helped the loss ratio some but would not have changed the course of the battle.

One thing nobody else here has mentioned, so I'll bring it up for folks to ponder over the long weekend. My morning paper reported on this, and noted that elements of the Japanese far-right-wing political spectrum are trumpeting this find as "proving" the US started the war. Dangerous revisionism, this. Apparently these fellows wish us to assume that those subs operating in the defensive sea area were simply there on a sightseeing mission to Waikiki, and were blown away by the imperialist American aggressors. Seems that by the tenets of this point of view there's no such thing as being allowed to defend an active military installation against an apparent threat until war is actually declared. A dangerous doctrine, and one that thoughtful Americans and Japenses both should attempt to discredit. Getting down from the soapbox now....
Greg

...

One thing nobody else here has mentioned, so I'll bring it up for folks to ponder over the long weekend. My morning paper reported on this, and noted that elements of the Japanese far-right-wing political spectrum are trumpeting this find as "proving" the US started the war. Dangerous revisionism, this. Apparently these fellows wish us to assume that those subs operating in the defensive sea area were simply there on a sightseeing mission to Waikiki, and were blown away by the imperialist American aggressors. Seems that by the tenets of this point of view there's no such thing as being allowed to defend an active military installation against an apparent threat until war is actually declared. A dangerous doctrine, and one that thoughtful Americans and Japenses both should attempt to discredit. Getting down from the soapbox now....
Greg

I remember reading an article in either my Dad's Veterans of Foreign Wars or American Legion magazine that there was now some evidence to back a theory that one of the midgets managed to enter the harbor, position itself without being detected, and successfully fired on either the USS West Virginia or the USS Oklahoma. Based on overhead pictures taken by Japanese aircrew, there were torpedo tracks showing in the water that could not be accounted for by the number of Kates that were in the pictures. There's still that fifth mini-boat that is unaccounted for somewhere down there. The USS St. Louis also reported that she was attacked by 2 torpedoes fired from the direction of the entry channel mouth when she sortied at 0930 from her mooring in the South-East loch. Both detonated on lava heads near the shore