Wreck of HIJMS I-16

 Second World War 1939-1945, shipwreck

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Laid down at the Mitsubishi Shipbuilding Yard in Kobe in March 1940, HIJMS I-16 commissioned into service with the Imperial Japanese Navy in November 1941 as a member of the Sixth Fleet. Rather than engaging in regular fleet training and exercises, HIJMS I-16 was one of five Japanese Submarines fitted with machinery to deploy a top-secret two-man Type A Midget Submarine from her afterdeck in November 1941, part of the Sixth Fleet's Special Attack Unit being prepared for the upcoming attack on Pearl Harbor.

After engaging in specialized training with her counterparts, the I-16 and her crew departed Japan with the Special Attack Unit on November 19th, 1941 and steamed directly for Pearl Harbor where they took up station and awaited the morning of December 7th to begin their combined attack. The Second World War began for the I-16 at 0042hrs on December 7th when she launched her Type A Midget Submarine from a position only seven miles South of Pearl Harbor and then departed to patrol off Lanai for any American ships returning or leaving the harbor. Receiving word of the successful air attack, the I-16's Midget Sub and it's two crew were never heard from again and were presumed lost when she returned to Japan on December 20th. After remaining in home waters through April 1942 testing and evaluating her Midget Sub operations, the I-16 sortied on her second War Patrol in May bound for the Indian Ocean, where she and her fellow Special Attack Subs mounted a successful attack on the British Fleet at Diego Suarez on May 29th, damaging the Battleship HMS Ramillies and the tanker British Loyalty. Withdrawing from the area, the I-16 notched her first four kills of the war in one month, sinking four merchant ships off the Maldives in June before she returned to Japan for overhaul lasting through October 1942.

Following her yard period the I-16 was assigned to the midget submarine base Marovovo, Guadalcanal but by the time she arrived her capabilities were quickly reassigned for duty with the "Tokyo Express" making clandestine supply drops to Japanese forces operating on the island. Operating in this new role as a supply sub, the I-16 withdrew from the Guadalcanal area with the rest of the Japanese forces in February, but quickly resumed her mission to Japanese outposts now under threat in New Guinea. After a refit which left her essentially functioning as a submersible cargo ship armed with only two torpedoes, the I-16 spent the balance of 1942 and all of 1943 engaged in supply runs to and from New Guinea from Rabaul until she was damaged by an American aircraft and returned to Japan for refit lasting from January to March 1944.

Reassigned to operate out of Truk in April, the I-16 and her crew continued their supply missions in the face of mounting American Naval strength and increased air cover. Nonetheless, the I-16 was ordered to resupply the Japanese garrison at Buin Island in Early May and after informing his Command of his ETA to the Island, the I-16 departed Truk on May 14th, 1944. Unbeknownst to the crew aboard the I-16 and in the Japanese Command, American codebreakers had cracked the Japanese Naval codes and quickly dispatched a Submarine Hunter-Killer Group from the Florida Islands to intercept the I-16 while at sea. The three American Destroy Escorts USS George (DE-697), USS England (DE-635) and USS Raby (DE-698) hastily made for their designated intercept point, assisted on the morning of May 19th by a USAAF patrol plane sighting the surfaced I-16 shortly after dawn and relaying it's course and speed to the ships.

Moving to line-abreast formation, the three ships began sweeping the ocean for the I-16 at 1300hrs and only had to search for a half hour before the submerged I-16 appeared on the sonar screens of the USS England. Moving quickly to attack, the England began the first of five separate 'hedgehog' anti-submarine mortar attacks on the deep-running I-16 at 1342hrs scoring with her second spread but missing with all others. Lining up a fifth shot, the England sent it's volley into the deep at 1432hrs and was lifted clear out of the water by a massive underwater explosion at 1435hrs. Shortly thereafter, debris and an oil slick floated to the surface indicating the loss of HIJMS I-16 and all 103 of her crew at this location on May 19th, 1944.


www.combinedfleet.com/I-16.htm