In the dim light, with the Japanese sub less than 15 feet away, the third bit of luck came into play. Nishino, unable to see whether the torpedo had hit the ship, moved in closer to check it out. Two were the darkness and the torpedo’s explosion away from the ship. Fragments from the torpedo also fell on our deck.’Ī combination of three things saved the freighter and her crew. There was a huge shower accompanied by smoke and flames. The torpedo went directly beneath us, didn’t even touch the hull and continued beyond. It was too late to do more than just wait for our destiny. Seconds later, as Sinnes recalled, ‘We saw the telltale wake of a torpedo coming directly at us amidships. Fragments fell to the deck.’Ĭaptain Nishino, unsatisfied with the results of the shelling from his pitching deck, ordered a torpedo fired at 70 yards. ‘One, apparently aimed at our radio antenna, burst in the air above the stern. ‘Five shots were fired at us,’ Captain Sinnes later recalled. As crewmen began tearing the canvas covers from the lifeboats, the Japanese opened up. Moments before Samoa crossed the bow of I-17, First Mate John Lehtonen, on watch at the time, spotted a dim light from the approaching enemy sub and yelled down to the captain, ‘A submarine is attacking us!’ Captain Nels Sinnes, who had been asleep, sat bolt upright in his bunk, quickly pulled on his pants and shirt, grabbed a life jacket and yelled into the crew’s quarters for everyone to report to their lifeboat stations. Since he was allotted only one torpedo per merchant ship, Nishino decided to open the attack with his 5.5-inch deck gun and use a torpedo only if necessary. Kozo Nishino, captain of the 2,500-ton sub, ordered an attack on the American freighter Samoa, which was on her way to San Diego with a load of lumber. and I-10 off San Diego.Ībout an hour before dawn on December 18, I-17 was moving quietly along the surface 15 miles off Cape Mendocino when one of her lookouts spotted a ship approaching. The remaining five subs, assigned to locations that had been deemed less crucial, would nonetheless see the most action: I-9 off Cape Blanco, Ore. Four subs, I-19, I-15, I-25 and I-26, were ordered to the most important locations: I-19 off Los Angeles Harbor, I-15 off San Francisco Bay, I-25 off the mouth of the Columbia River and I-26 off the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the important waterway leading into and out of the port of Seattle. The nine subs were strategically located–based on prewar intelligence–to give them the best opportunity to attack the shipping lanes most commonly used by American merchantmen. With only slight differences, all had a range of approximately 15,000 miles, a surface speed of 23 1/2 knots, carried as many as 18 torpedoes, mounted a 5.5-inch deck gun, were over 355 feet long and carried a complement of 94 to 100 men. coast were all launched a year or two before the war began. The nine submarines sent to shell the U.S. After expending all of their 5.5-inch shells, they were to retire to Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands. As a climax to the operation, around midnight on Christmas Eve all nine subs were to shell selected U.S. Nine of the 12 subs were ordered to pursue and sink the enemy carrier, then take up positions at designated sites off the Pacific coast and begin attacking American merchant ships. On December 10, the Japanese learned that an American Lexington-class aircraft carrier was heading for the U.S. So successful was the December 7 surprise attack that for two days not a single American ship was spotted at sea. Pacific Fleet ships if they broke out of Pearl Harbor the next day. Twelve I-type submarines of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s 1st Submarine Squadron had taken up position in Hawaiian waters by the evening of December 6, 1941, anticipating an attack on U.S. It was the first and only time during the three years and eight months of war to come that more than one Japanese submarine appeared at the same time off the American coast. west coast attacked eight American merchant ships, of which two were sunk and two damaged. Over a seven-day period, from December 18 to 24, 1941, nine Japanese submarines positioned at strategic points along the U.S.
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