IJN Submarine Aircraft Carriers

[Ian_Grant]

Recently returned from a vacation in Hawaii. On our last day we flew to Honolulu and went to Pearl Harbour before flying home that night. In the fleet submarine museum next to USS Bowfin, there was a model of a large Japanese submarine which carried aircraft. I had never heard of this. Are there any models available, does anyone know?

[bruce d]

The IJN had some a/c carrying subs at the outbreak such as I-15, I-16 etc and then developed the mamoth I-400 class later.

I think it was I-15 that successfully attacked the  US west coast. 

Both classes are available as kits, sorry I'm not up to date but there are 1/700 waterline kits, also I know Nichimo did them in 1/200 scale years ago.

HTH 

Bruce 

[Ian_Grant]

Bruce - Yes, I-400, that was it!

 

Tamiya has a large model as here:

 

https://www.ebay.com/p/1800179449

[Dr PR]

There was a very good story with lots of photos about these submarines in Sea Classics magazine. It also has a first hand account of the pilot from I-25 Flying Officer Fujita who bombed the Oregon coast on 9 September 1942.

 

Sea Classics, Vol.4, No. 1,January 1971, page 44

[bruce d]

4 hours ago, Dr PR said:

the pilot from I-25 Flying Officer Fujita who bombed the Oregon coast on 9 September 1942.

 

Sea Classics, Vol.4, No. 1,January 1971, page 44

Yes, I remember that. Good story.

[Ian_Grant]

Never heard of that story either. The Doolittle raid in reverse.....

[mtaylor]

Here's more about not only the sub based bomber but other attacks on Oregon by the Japanese.   https://sos.oregon.gov/archives/exhibits/ww2/Pages/threats-bombs.aspx

[Dr PR]

A friend, William McCash, wrote the book "Bombs over Brookings" about Nobuo Fujita and the attacks on the Oregon coast. The aerial attacks weren't on towns or forts, but in the Coast Range forests. The idea was to start forest fires to destroy the timber resource. It failed. No significant fire resulted.

 

The Coast Range is wet. Very wet. Lots of fog and rain. The rain isn't heavy - what we called "sprinkles" back east - but it is continuous in the winter months. There have been years when it clouded up and started raining in late October and we didn't see clear skies until April or May. I used to tell people that any time the ground got dry in Oregon it was a drought.

 

However, in the last 20 years it has been much dryer, and we have had some horrendous forest fires. Fujita's attacks were just 75 years ahead of time.