Spring, 1946. Ten months after the end of World War II, an explosion rocks the Pacific off the coast of Hawaii. America has just destroyed one of Japan’s most advanced weapons systems – the I-401 aircraft carrier submarine. The supersub combined the stealth and tactical advantages of sea and sky and was invented to execute air strikes on land from the sea. But why did America sink one of its most prized military captures? Bound by an agreement to share any intelligence with the Soviets but feeling the pressure of the looming Cold War, it was a calculated decision to keep the technology out of Soviet hands. Six decades later, a team of researchers from the University of Hawaii located the submarine’s remains. The discovery of the sunken sub sparks a new examination of its forgotten place in military history.
THIRTEEN’s Secrets of the Dead: Japanese SuperSub recounts Japan’s superior submarine technology and reveals how close the Japanese came to using the subs to blow up the Panama Canal, terrorize the U.S. and possibly enact a deadly biological attack. The film premieres nationally Wednesday, May 5, 2010 at 8 p.m. (ET) on PBS (check local listings). Actor Liev Schreiber (Taking Woodstock and X-Men Origins: Wolverine) narrates.
Preview this episode:
“This little-known sub had potential to be a true game-changer,” says Jared Lipworth, executive producer of Secrets of the Dead. “If the Japanese had managed to build a fleet of them and get them into action early in the war, the outcome in the Pacific might have been very different. Fortunately for America, our secret weapon was the game changer, and because of it, the Japanese never got a chance to use theirs.”
The need for the aircraft carrier subs arose after the attack on Pearl Harbor and America’s entry into the war. Realizing that the Japanese Navy could not compete head-to-head with the machine and manpower of the U.S., Harvard-educated Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto decided that the Japanese needed a way to strike quickly, terrorize American citizens and sap America’s willpower for an all-out war in the Pacific. After experimenting with some small attacks on the U.S. West coast, Yamamoto came up with the idea of a fleet of aircraft-carrying subs that could launch attacks on the American mainland.
Designing and building the subs, however, was no easy feat. The aircraft hangar made them too top-heavy for a standard submarine layout, so the Japanese engineers came up with an innovative twin-hull design that could support the hangar and airplane launch ramp. The sub’s specialty bombers, called Seirans, also had to be custom designed. They had wings that could rotate and fold up, a tailfin that could fold down, and a method of heating the engine oil underwater so that the planes didn’t have to warm up on the surface, where they were most vulnerable to attack. The submarine was also heavily armed with four anti-aircraft guns and eight torpedo tubes, and had a special rubber and asphalt coating that helped prevent it from being spotted by enemy radar.
The subs were ahead of their time, but by the time they were ready to set sail, their mission was outdated. The Japanese entertained the idea of using them to launch biological attacks on U.S. cities, sending them to blow up the Panama Canal, and ultimately, using them to attack American aircraft carriers of the Island of Uthili. They might have succeeded, but America’s super-weapon arrived just in time, and the Atom bomb put an end to the war.
Japanese SuperSub brings viewers first-hand veteran accounts from sailors and pilots who manned the Japanese subs, and from the American sailors who captured them. The engineering logistics and battle plans, explored by military historians, highlight just how innovative the submarines really were. The documentary examines two nations engaged in a war, and in a secret, experimental arms race. In the U.S., it was the Manhattan Project, with top scientists racing to create the atomic bomb. In Japan, it was the I-400 project, to build a submarine that could wrestle the advantage from a far superior American force. Once shrouded in secrecy and still with classified components, the powerful supersubs are finally being acknowledged as the precursor to modern attack submarines, and perhaps the greatest weapons that never did battle.
THIRTEEN’s Secrets of the Dead: Japanese SuperSub was produced by Windfall Films and Spy Pond Productions for THIRTEEN in association with National Geographic Channel and WNET.ORG. Eric Stange is producer/director, Anna Saraceno and Jackie Mow are co-producers, and David Dugan is executive producer for Windfall Films. At THIRTEEN, Jared Lipworth is executive producer. William R. Grant is executive-in-charge.
I am gald we were first
Hello Producers,
My name is Mark, I am a college student. I am doing a research paper on WWII, and I would like to use information from this program as a source for my paper. I see this program is scheduled to air Wednesday May 5, 2010 at 8:00pm. My question is when will this program be available on your website for online viewing/reviewing?
Thank you
Attempting to compare a submarine carrying one or two unescorted bombers with a WWII Essex classAmerican aircraft carrier bearing 90 to 100 planes: fighters, bombers and torpedo planes is just plain silly. This story is just sensationalism and desperation for some kind of unique line on WWII steamrollering all sound judgment and all right regard for the truth. Shame on PBS!
Holy cow! I’ve understated the capabilities of I-401 by 33%! This game changer was actually capable of carrying THREE, count ‘em, THREE Aichi M6A1 “Seiran” (Mountain Haze) float planes. So the score stands ar zero bombers and three torpedo planes. This thing was even more of an abject failure than I thought.
Game changer? A waste of precious Japanese resources, serving only to shorten the war in favor of the US, very similar in effect to the celebrated midget submarines the Japanese were so enamored with.
Hey PBS, learn something before you shoot your mouth off. Some depend on you for information instead of comedy.
My father who was on the ship Proteus (a sub-tender) captured the I-400 at the end of www II. In fact the Proteus was there when Japan signed the surrender on Missouri. My father was one of sailors in the engine room who brought the I-400 back to pearl harbor.
To say the least he is thrilled to see this documentary on TV after all these years.
Thanks for doing this!
Hi Mark -
The program will be available in the morning the day after broadcast. If you’re really in a hurry, you can also check online at video.pbs.org as sometimes video publishes earlier in the PBS video portal.
Thanks for your interest in Secrets of the Dead!
It will be interesting to see if the program discusses how the Seiran aircraft that were to be launched had been painted in U.S. markings.
This is a sweet innovation, although I highly doubt it would have affected the outcome of the war positively for Japan. In June, 1942 Japan lost 4 nice fleet carriers, a slew of men and planes and almost the same happened in the Battle of the Phillipine Sea, except that she did loose a slew of aircraft in this battle. Japan’s Navy was all but done after the Marianas Turkey Shoot and would be finished off at Leyte. So what were they going to do? Send a fleet of these aircraft carrier submarines to face off against the Navie’s 122 aircraft carriers (both fleet and jeep). They were going to slug it out with the U.S Navie’s 5th and 7th fleets? Without going into huge detail the creation of I400 type submarines, and a fleet of them would have been a false road for Japan to go down and probably would have cost her the war that much earlier! Also, Japan was close to Empty with regards to steel and fuel. Why would she want to waste what she had on something that is no match for a fleet or jeep carrier. In hindsight her death ray would have been a better venture.
Both Steve & Marc Kaye {see comments before mine} are correct, and a few more details are needed. First, many Ships, Tanks, Planes & other W.W. II weapons & technology were destroyed after the war ended–but that does not mean any of them were significant! By the time W.W.II ended, The U.S. War Dept. {along with every other Allied Govt.} was Freaked-Out about what they had just survived, and determined to make sure that Japan & Germany could never again do anything that could lead to War. So they destroyed everything that was leftover.You HAVE TO look at & see everything from their standpoint! This is crucial, because Japan’s ‘Super-Sub’ was extremely difficult & expensive to run. And very clumsy to use. This was as significant as the secret Balloons {loaded with explosives and/or Bio-weapons} that Japan’s Military DID launch into the Trade Winds: Not much. The Balloons that reached the U.S.A.’s Western States landed in Farm land, and succeeded in killing 2 or 3 civilians, and had zero lasting effects.
End of serious discussion as usual. Thanks spammers.
My grandfather was on the USS Proteus at the same time, Robert (Bob) Shaw.
I just watched your program on the I-400 subs. While it was presented well and fascinating, factual errors distracted me. The ‘Hellcat’ video you presented was instead an F3F Wildcat, an earlier short range folding-wing carrier based fighter. Later you demonstrated inaccuracy of WWII era bombers by dropping bombs from a ‘B-29 bomber’ (a four engine heavy bomber) that was, in fact, a North American B-25 Mitchell bomber, a twin-engine medium bomber. Thanks for the otherwise interesting show. The highlights were the interviews with the sailors who had to impound the subs and return them to port. Their accounts of interacting with the Japanese crews were excellent and would have otherwise been lost. Great show.
I neglected to mention, you should have video taped the sole remaining Seiran bomber at the National Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy facility at Dulles.
this is one of the best SOTD episodes ever. Really neat information! The Japanese used human subjects–Chinese–to conduct their own testing of biological agents and killed 200,000 doing so. They also had planned to attack US cities with this I-400 submarine and short range planes that were going to carry Anthrax or some other agent.
I don’t ever want to hear anyone tell me that it was a mistake to end this war as soon as possible using Fat Man and Little Boy.
Dear Sirs,
I came here to point out several inaccuracies in your production and the two most blaring I find are mentioned by J.D. McClain above. Maybe you should have your productions viewed by individuals in the know before broadcasting them.
2 instances of misuse of the word “decimate” meaning to destroy or eliminate 1 ouf of 10 – not destroy in large measure.
Boast of largest naval cannon on a submarine is in error 140mm is equivalent to 5.5 inch . French submarine Surcouf launched October 18, 1929 and complete in May of 1934 carried a turreted PAIR of 8 inch (203mm) cannon.
American submarine V.4 (Argonaut) launched 1927, V.5 (Narwahl) 1929 and V.6 (original NAUTILUS ) launch 1930 all carried a pair of 6 inch 53 caliber 150mm cannon, 1 fore and aft of the conning tower.All three submarines served in WWII.
My sources indicate the crew of I400 class to be 144, not the 200 mentioned in the show. My source is secondary and not from the Japanese naval archive directly. Overall an interesting show that could have used some fact checking.
I was pleased to see this show, especially since the Segundo (SS 398) was the boat I served aboard in the 1950s. I had known that the Segundo “captured” a Japanese sub and escorted it back to Japan at the end of the war but didn’t know that it was a “super sub”. It was great to see my old boat once more. Incidentally, the Segundo was one of the subs used in the 1952 William Holden movies: “Submarine Command”.
I would like to know who the Segundo crew member in the film was.
BE GLAD THAT THEY DIDN’T HAVE THIS AND THAT THEY GAVE UP ON THEIR ATTEMPT ON BUILDING THEIR OWN ATOM BOMB. ENCLOSE IS AN ARTICLE ABOUT THAT.
World War II
The leading figure in the Japanese atomic program was Dr. Yoshio Nishina, a friend of Niels Bohr and a close associate of Albert Einstein. Dr. Nishina was a highly skilled world class physicist with excellent leadership qualities, who co-authored the Klein-Nishina Formula. Nishina had established his own Nuclear Research Laboratory to study high-energy physics in 1931 at Riken Institute (the Institute for Physical and Chemical Research), which had been established in 1917 in Tokyo to promote basic research. Nishina had built his first 26 inch cyclotron in 1936, and another 60 inch 220 ton cyclotron in 1937. In 1938 Japan also purchased a cyclotron from the University of California, Berkeley.
In 1939 Nishina recognized the military potential of nuclear fission, and was worried that the Americans were working on a nuclear weapon which might be used against Japan. Indeed, in 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt started the first investigations into fission weapons in the United States, which eventually evolved into the massive Manhattan Project, and the laboratory from which Japan purchased its own cyclotron would become one of the major sites for weapons research.
In the early summer of 1940 Nishina met Lieutenant-General Takeo Yasuda on a train. Yasuda was at the time director of the Army Aeronautical Department’s Technical Research Institute. Nishina told Yasuda about the possibility of building nuclear weapons.[4] However, the Japanese fission project did not formally begin until April 1941 when Yasuda acted on Prime Minister Hideki Tojo’s order to investigate the possibilities of nuclear weapons. Yasuda passed the order down the chain of command to Okochi Masatoshi, director of the Riken Institute, who in turn passed it to Nishina, whose Nuclear Research Laboratory by 1941 had over 100 researchers.[5]
Meanwhile, the Imperial Japanese Navy’s Technology Research Institute had been pursuing its own separate investigations, and had engaged professors from the Imperial University, Tokyo, for advice on nuclear weapons. This resulted in the formation of the Committee on Research in the Application of Nuclear Physics, chaired by Nishina, that met ten times between July 1942 and March 1943. It concluded in a report that while an atomic bomb was, in principle, feasible, “it would probably be difficult even for the United States to realize the application of atomic power during the war”. This caused the Navy to lose interest and to concentrate instead on research into radar.[5]
Blaine, my name is John Geoghegan. I was a consultant on the PBS documentary and am writing a book about the I-400 subs for Random House. I would be interested in learning more about your father’s experience. Please contact me to discuss further at johnjgeoghegan@yahoo.com. Kind regards, jg
Very enjoyable presentaion. Interesting interviews of former Japense pilots. For those that believe this was a fantasy, I recommend you read the book “Pacific” and understand the ferocity of the Japenese to defend their homeland.
Thank you PBS. Ypu will always receive a few complaints.
I am a middle school teacher and just happened to see this on PBS one night during our unit on WWII. I found the information fascinating and I really feel that we need more programs like this on television.
Kids today do not get to see the same historical programs that I saw on the History Channel growing up. It is unfortunate that reality tv has cut into much of the quality programming that was once offered.
I agree with Ivan Berger. Thank you PBS.
imagine this sub surfacing off the coast of california and what effect it would have on the american public.
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Goodbye
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It seems to me that within the past few years there was another PBS program that explored the discovery undersea of a sunken supersub that was theorized to be the top secret Japanese aircraft carrier sub, of which previously only design plans were known to exist. The Imperial insignia on its prow was used to prove that this was indeed the secret supersub, In that program, the discussion was that only one of these subs had been built, and that it was sunk rather than let the Americans get their hands on it.
How interesting then to watch this secrets of the Dead, in which it turns out two of the subs were built, and indeed taken by the Americans. The same Japanese sailor was interviewed in both programs. What I want to know is how all the additional information came to light since the “discovery” of the sunkern sub a few years ago.
Maybe the program was a Ntional Geographic Superstructures episode, or a History channel show. Wish i could remember.
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My Dad was also the special crew that brought the I401 back to Hawaii.
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