Japanese "Type A" Ko-hyoteki Midget Submarine

 museum, Second World War 1939-1945, military, navy, submarine, display

One of 101 examples built for the Imperial Japanese Navy, this Type A Ko-hyoteki Midget Submarine is one of the few surviving examples of its type on display worldwide.

Designed to be transported either aboard a surface craft or by a specially-modified Submarine, the Type A was a two-man Submarine which was armed with a pair of 17.7-inch torpedoes in superfiring bow tubes. Seeing action in the Attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, the Attack on Sydney and Diego Suarez in May 1942, the Submarines and their intrepid crews found barely marginal success for their heavy losses.

The Type A on display at the Submarine Force Museum was recovered postwar and received a full exterior restoration for its present exhibition.