Japan's Midget Sub

During WWII, the Imperial Japanese Navy built and deployed hundreds of different submarines, but on the morning of December 7th, 1941, they debuted a particularly secret weapon—the Type A Ko-Hyoteki midget submarine. Five of these small subs furtively made their way toward Pearl Harbor with the mission to attack U.S. battleships from below. At a quarter the size of common fleet subs, the midgets were a technological marvel, far outperforming their western counterparts. In this interactive, explore a model of the Ko-Hyoteki deployed in the attack.—Parks Stephenson

Parks Stephenson is a Systems Engineering Manager at Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems and Sensors. He has also been a contributing member of the Marine Forensic Panel and a historical advisor to various documentary films, including James Cameron's Ghosts of the Abyss. For more on Stephenson as well as in-depth information on the fifth Japanese midget sub, visit his website, i-16tou.com.

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