[Aktungbby]

1941 First Japanese midget submarine (No. 20) attacked by a US ship (USS Ward).

At 6:45, the captain ordered to “commence firing!” Gun 1, Which was composed of a gun crew of Minnesota Reservists who were not Minnesota Nice and fired the first shot. They were with a crew filled out mostly by 84 naval reservists from St. Paul. Their seamanship had been acquired training on the Mississippi and Lake Superior. That shot 'barely missed' but the second gun, #3 didn't.....and sank the first enemy ship of the war for the US... before it had fired its own two torpedos!

As Ward pounded past at 25 knots, number three gun atop the galley deckhouse amidships commenced fire, its round passed squarely through the submersible's conning tower. As the Japanese midget wallowed lower in the water and started to sink, the destroyer swiftly dropped four depth charges, signalled by four blasts on the ship's whistle. Black water gushed upwards in the ship's boiling wake as the charges went off, sealing the submarine's doom.

What a four inch shell hole looks like on the Jap mini sub rediscovered on 2002-fulfilling the Ward's claim of a sinking: http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/HURL/gallery/archaeology/midget.html#images The actual gun that fired the first shot now is a memorial upon the Minnesota Capitol Mall> (click to enlarge)