We have discussed the fact that the Japanese had the biggest submarines in World War II and that they also had submarines that could and did, carry aircraft. The Japanese wanted to have the biggest ships and boats in the war. The Yamamoto was the biggest Battleship by far that plied the seas in the war. The Akagi was one of the carriers that attacked us at Pearl Harbor and was able to carry 91 planes and weighed in at 42,000 tons. So we see it was no surprise that the Japanese also wanted to have huge submarines. So huge in fact, that until the nuclear subs of the 1960, the large Japanese submarines of World War II were the largest subs ever built.

I-401 And Its Crew
Photo Source: U.S. Navy

The submarine is over 400 feet long and held a crew of about 144 men. The sub is as tall as a 4 story building at a height of over 39 feet. It is a 'Sesuikan Toku' class boat. The boat was built for the purpose of carrying planes to bomb the Panama Canal. There was a water tight compartment that held 3 planes and there was another plane in pieces that could be assembled and made ready for flight. The planes themselves were equipped to land on water and were bombers that folded up. The sub was created to have a phenomenal range and it did. This undersea craft could actually sail around the world one and a half times without refueling and this made it a very dangerous adversary. The exact range of the boat was 37,000 miles without adding any fuel.

The I-401 had become an American prize at the end of the war, but the Soviets were demanding access to it and other captured Japanese submarines. . The government didn't want this, especially because some of the other Japanese submarines we captured were way faster than anything we had in the war and we didn't want this technology to become available to the Russians at the time. So we took the subs out and sunk them. I am sure that we drained every bit of technology out of them first however.

Now this brings us to the present time. Guess what? The I-401 wreck has been found. It is sitting about 820 meters down in the waters off Oahu, Hawaii. It had been mistaken for a huge rock formation but later it was realized that it was a wreck. Scientists from the University of Hawaii discovered it. One of the scientists stated that the hull was still in great shape, the numbers are visible and the antiaircraft guns are in almost perfect condition. The boat is sitting there like some great monster just daring someone to try and raise her. It is not clear what her ultimate fate will be, but the location has been marked for further study.