Did Japanese midget submarines sink the Arizona?
 

There's a program on SBS at 8:30 tonight. The description is as follows:

Judging by the results from the other battleships I highly doubt a torpedo caused the magzine detonation. No other battleship that was torpedoed exploded. And one torpedo would not have been able to sink her. One battleship took about 6-7 torpedoes before slowly sinking.

Yeaaaaa....no it was not midget subs.

I think TV Guide is posting an inaccurate description of the show if it its the show I'm thinking of. In it they suggest the Midget submarine helped to sink the Oklahoma not the Arizona.

Yeah wasn't the Arizona protected from torpedo attack by that tender parked alongside?

If it was in TV, it must be true... :hmm2:

But no, I highly doubt that. Not even with a "lucky shot", I mean how would this even work? A single torpedo at this type of BB?
Nah... not in my universe...

Highly unlikely imho :nope:

That reminds me... what did they actually find in the Churchill river!? They suspected it a type 9 u-boat and anyone here was laughing their butts off because of that... I never heard about it again, I assume they went silent after figuring they found an old trawler or something :D

Anyone have the latest gossip?

(Oh and sorry for hi-jacking)

U.S.S. Vestal, but she was a lot shorter than the Arizona, allowing torpedoes to hit the BBs bow or stern.


http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/i...000/h50931.jpg

some have suggested that this and similar photos shows the submarine tracks from the midget sub hitting West Virginia which is already listing to port, although I think that is a stretch myself. They are most likely air dropped torpedoes.

Arizona and Vestal are moored just behind West Virginia and Tennessee.

That photo was taken by a Japanese aircraft, more details here:

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/e...hbr/ph-bba.htm

The History Channel did a major show on this at one time - at least on the mini-subs. There is reason to believe 1 got in and in fact did get a shot off. However, there is no way to tell if it hit or what damage it may have done.

With that said - the Arizona is a known entity. Video footage actually captured not just the final explosion, but the series of events immediately prior. The Arizona blew because of a bomb penetration right next to a turret. "Ready" ammunition went off sympathetically (some theorize that the main forward magazine was not secured and that some powder was in fact stored outside unsecured doors) - causing a chain of events that resulted in the magazine blowing.

Extensive investigation showed that the hull of Arizona blew outward - meaning the explosion originated interally - not fror a torp hit.

The PBS program "Nova" did a rather detailed presentation on just this subject a while back:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/militar...rl-harbor.html

The site offers the opportunity to view the program and has a transcript of the presentation...

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The problem with the theory that a midget sub torpedoed the Arizona is the fact that the Vestal partially blocked the shot. They are the last pair on the left. The Vestal was 470 feet long, the Arizona 610 feet, a difference of only 140 feet. Doable, but a tight shot.

It is much more likely that a sub would have targeted either the West Virginia or the Oklahoma, both of which were wide open.


http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/i...000/h50472.jpg

The "bombs" dropped on the battleships were modified 41cm (16.1") armor-piercing shells, dropped by level bombers from high altitude by level bombers. As far as I know that was the only one that actually hit anything. I was unaware of the extra powder storage and had assumed that the "bomb" penetrated all the way to the main magazine, which was certainly possible with that shell.
Here is a very good discussion on the subject.
http://www.kbismarck.org/forum/viewt...hp?f=36&t=1839

Note that the final post really is the final word on the subject. Nathun Okun is widely recognized as the world's leading expert on naval armor and the shells designed to defeat it.

interesting thread Steve.

The only IJN carrier plane that could carry those special 800 kg bombs were the "Kate" torpedo bombers. I presume they are the same ones that took the above aerial pictures.

Steve - your correct that the bombs were in fact modified gun shells. I found a bit more here:

http://www.pearlharborattacked.com/c...=18;t=89;st=20

The source is also well respected and has dived on the wreck itself.

Regarding powder storage:
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/e...lhbr/ph-az.htm

There is a show that is a few years old on the History and Military channel called "Unsolved History" that went into this in depth.

They made a compelling case that 3 midget subs were deployed that day.

One of them sunk by the USS Ward, which was (un)officially the first shots fired by the USA in WW2.

I wonder if it is the same show?

I hope I didn't give the impression I was disagreeing. My only point there was that I had never heard that. Conjecture or not, it's just as plausible as the bomb penetrating to the magazine. So many things we would love to know and never will.

Steve - not at all. Since you said you had not heard it, I simply wanted to provide a source where I had so you could consider it more than just me saying so. From what I understand from some of the writings, the divers indicate that there is no sign that the magazine was compromised from outside before the explosion.

I do think we will never know for sure - anyone close enough to tell us perished in the concussion or aftermath.

Blimey. Took me a long time to watch it :doh:

Anyway, it turns out that midget sub No.5 managed to get into Pearl Harbour and fired it's torpedoes at either the Arizona or the Oklahoma and West Virginia. One of its torpedoes was a dud, and was recovered by the US navy not long after (If it discharged both torpedoes at the Arizona, both were duds or one missed). The submarine sent out a signal (it attacked on the surface) to it's mother sub. The signal, Kira, is believed to be a misspelling of Tora, due to the stress of operating a midget sub. The sub quickly escaped to west loch, were it's crew detonated scuttling charges, blowing the sub in two and killing themselves. It remained there until the west loch disaster of 1943, when it was gathered with the sunken US LCTs, cut into three, and dumped outside the harbour.

Here's more information on the west loch disaster: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Loch_disaster

Soon I'll post a photo of what may be midget sub No.5 firing at battleship row, unwittingly taken by a Japanese airman.

Here's the photo:

http://imageshack.us/a/img692/5552/p...n19095058h.jpg

Those plumes behind the sub are 'rooster tails' caused by the destabilization of the sub after the torpedoes were launched.