Fearless Tower wrote:
Canso42 wrote:
As long as we're diverging some on ships instead of a/c..... I saw the IJN midget sub that went aground in HI in it's current display at the NMPW.
Has anyone else ever thought that the kaiten drivers were not exactly the cream of the crop of the IJN silent service?
The one on display navigated its way onto the shore..... and the one everyone knows about stuck his scope up for a look next to a gunnery target! And it was between an armed patrol bomber and the duty destroyer and both were wound up tight full of itchy trigger fingers.
Tactically challenged?
Part of the problem is that the Japanese never really embraced the submarine like the US and Germans did. Throughout the war, they saw them as primarily covert transports rather than offensive weapons.
I would disagree. The IJN used their subs primarily to destroy other warships, rather than prey on merchant shipping like the US and Germans. To that effect, they were quite effective, especially in the earlier part of the war sinking Yorktown & Wasp while damaging Saratoga twice, taking her away from battles where her presence could have helped the American cause. Battleship North Carolina also fell victim to a sub, being damaged the same time Wasp was sunk and missing the Santa Cruz and Guadalcanal battles due to the damage. The light cruiser Juneau also was sunk by a Japanese sub after she was damaged after the horrific night action of November 12, 1942, taking with her the five Sullivan brothers.
At Tarawa, the I-boats sank escort carrier Liscombe Bay and damaged the new Lexington. Knowing this is how the Japanese employed their I-boats ultimately lead to their destruction, as the England proved prior to the invasion of the Marianas where she virtually singlehandedly wiped out the Japanese submarine picket line.
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