''I-17'' was a Japanese
B1 type submarine
The , also called was the first group of boats of the Type B cruiser submarines built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during the 1940s. In total 20 were built, starting with , which gave the series their alternative name.
Design and descri ...
of the
Imperial Japanese Navy
The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrender ...
which saw service during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. This long-range
submarine cruiser
A cruiser submarine was a very large submarine designed to remain at sea for extended periods in areas distant from base facilities. Their role was analogous to surface cruisers, cruising distant waters, commerce raiding, and scouting for the batt ...
spent the early months of the war in the eastern Pacific and was the first
Axis
An axis (plural ''axes'') is an imaginary line around which an object rotates or is symmetrical. Axis may also refer to:
Mathematics
* Axis of rotation: see rotation around a fixed axis
*Axis (mathematics), a designator for a Cartesian-coordinate ...
ship to shell the continental United States. She later supported the
Imperial Japanese Army
The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...
in fighting around the Solomon Islands and remained active in the southwest Pacific until she was sunk in August 1943.
Service
Pearl Harbor
During the
attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, j ...
on 7 December 1941, ''I-17'' patrolled north of
Oahu
Oahu () (Hawaiian language, Hawaiian: ''Oʻahu'' ()), also known as "The Gathering place#Island of Oʻahu as The Gathering Place, Gathering Place", is the third-largest of the Hawaiian Islands. It is home to roughly one million people—over t ...
. Its mission was to reconnoiter and engage any ships that tried to sortie from Pearl Harbor.
[Tabular Record of Movement]
HIJMS Submarine I-17
/ref> ''I-17'' proceeded to a patrol station off Cape Mendocino
Cape Mendocino (Spanish: ''Cabo Mendocino'', meaning "Cape of Mendoza"), which is located approximately north of San Francisco, is located on the Lost Coast entirely within Humboldt County, California, United States. At 124° 24' 34" W longitude ...
following the attack on Pearl Harbor. The 6,912-ton General Petroleum tanker was sailing in ballast from Seattle, Washington
Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...
en route to San Pedro, California
San Pedro ( ; Spanish: " St. Peter") is a neighborhood within the City of Los Angeles, California. Formerly a separate city, it consolidated with Los Angeles in 1909. The Port of Los Angeles, a major international seaport, is partially located wi ...
. ''I-17'' hit the tanker with five shells in the early afternoon of 20 December 1941. The tanker was within sight of land, and survivors reached the Blunt Reef lightship in lifeboats. The tanker drifted north onto rocks off Crescent City, California
Crescent City (Tolowa: ''Taa-’at-dvn''; Yurok: ''Kohpey''; Wiyot: ''Daluwagh'') is the only incorporated city in Del Norte County, California; it is also the county seat. Named for the crescent-shaped stretch of sandy beach south of the city, ...
where the wreck remained until scrapped in 1959. A scheduled shelling of American coastal cities on Christmas Eve of 1941 was canceled because of the frequency of coastal air and surface patrols.
Shelling the U.S. continent
At night on 19 February 1942, ''I-17'' covertly landed on Point Loma, San Diego
Point Loma (Spanish: ''Punta de la Loma'', meaning "Hill Point"; Kumeyaay: ''Amat Kunyily'', meaning "Black Earth") is a seaside community within the city of San Diego, California. Geographically it is a hilly peninsula that is bordered on the ...
to determine her position after arriving from Kwajalein Atoll
Kwajalein Atoll (; Marshallese: ) is part of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI). The southernmost and largest island in the atoll is named Kwajalein Island, which its majority English-speaking residents (about 1,000 mostly U.S. civilia ...
. ''I-17'' then headed north along the coast of California. On 23 February, ''I-17'' achieved some notability as the first Axis ship to shell the United States mainland in an incident known as the Bombardment of Ellwood
The Bombardment of Ellwood during World War II was a naval attack by a Japanese submarine against United States coastal targets near Santa Barbara, California. Though the damage was minimal, the event was key in triggering the West Coast invas ...
. A few minutes after 7 pm, she surfaced a few hundred yards off a beach west of Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara ( es, Santa Bárbara, meaning "Saint Barbara") is a coastal city in Santa Barbara County, California, of which it is also the county seat. Situated on a south-facing section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coas ...
, within the Ellwood Oil Field
Ellwood Oil Field (also spelled "Elwood") and South Ellwood Offshore Oil Field are a pair of adjacent, partially active oil fields adjoining the city of Goleta, California, about west of Santa Barbara, largely in the Santa Barbara Channel. A r ...
. Over 20 minutes, she fired 17 shells from her 14 cm gun at the giant Richfield aviation fuel storage tanks on the blufftop behind the beach. The shots were mostly wild, one landing more than a mile inland. The closest shell exploded in a field from one of the tanks. The shelling did only minor damage to a pier and a pumphouse, but news of the shelling triggered an "invasion" scare along the West Coast.
The following night, the anti-aircraft defenses in Los Angeles exploded into action in response to an imagined invasion (later to be known as the Battle of Los Angeles
The Battle of Los Angeles, also known as the Great Los Angeles Air Raid, is the name given by contemporary sources to a rumored attack on the continental United States by Imperial Japan and the subsequent anti-aircraft artillery barrage which ...
. During a 30-minute fusillade, guns hurled 1,440 rounds of and 37 mm ammunition into the night sky at a supposed enemy aircraft, and about ten tons of shrapnel
Shrapnel may refer to:
Military
* Shrapnel shell, explosive artillery munitions, generally for anti-personnel use
* Shrapnel (fragment), a hard loose material
Popular culture
* ''Shrapnel'' (Radical Comics)
* ''Shrapnel'', a game by Adam C ...
and unexploded ammunition fell back on the city.
Aleutians and Guadalcanal
In early June 1942, ''I-17'' took part in the opening stages of the Aleutian Islands campaign.
In November 1942, ''I-17''s 14 cm deck gun was removed and she set out for Guadalcanal
Guadalcanal (; indigenous name: ''Isatabu'') is the principal island in Guadalcanal Province of Solomon Islands, located in the south-western Pacific, northeast of Australia. It is the largest island in the Solomon Islands by area, and the seco ...
on the first of many supply missions.
Battle of the Bismarck Sea
On 2 March 1943 in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea
The Battle of the Bismarck Sea (2–4 March 1943) took place in the South West Pacific Area (SWPA) during World War II when aircraft of the U.S. Fifth Air Force and the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) attacked a Japanese convoy carrying troops ...
, a Japanese convoy carrying troops to Lae
Lae () is the capital of Morobe Province and is the second-largest city in Papua New Guinea. It is located near the delta of the Markham River and at the start of the Highlands Highway, which is the main land transport corridor between the Highl ...
was bombed and strafed by USAAF
The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...
and Royal Australian Air Force
"Through Adversity to the Stars"
, colours =
, colours_label =
, march =
, mascot =
, anniversaries = RAAF Anniversary Commemoration ...
planes for three successive days. All of the eight transports and cargo vessels in the convoy and four of the eight escorting destroyer
In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, manoeuvrable, long-endurance warship intended to escort
larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against powerful short range attackers. They were originally developed in ...
s were sunk. The Japanese in lifeboats, rafts and in the water were strafed by planes and PT boat
A PT boat (short for patrol torpedo boat) was a motor torpedo boat used by the United States Navy in World War II. It was small, fast, and inexpensive to build, valued for its maneuverability and speed but hampered at the beginning of the wa ...
s. ''I-17'' was directed to the area.
On 5 March two PT boats, and ''PT-150'', discovered ''I-17'' with three lifeboats full of survivors from the Bismarck Sea battle. The submarine was taking them on board. ''I-17'' crash dived as the PT boats strafed and fired torpedoes at her. The PT boats then sank the lifeboats with machine gun fire and depth charges. Several hours later, ''I-17'' resurfaced and picked up 33 surviving soldiers.
The following day, ''I-17'' rescued another 118 soldiers and four sailors. She then sailed to Lae and disembarked her 155 passengers.[Official Chronology of the US Navy in World War II]
Chapter V: 1943
/ref>
Torpedoing ''Stanvac Manila''
On 24 May 1943, south off Noumea . ''I-17'' sighted the 10,169 ton Panamanian-flagged tanker ''Stanvac Manila''. The tanker had six PT boats on board as cargo. At 0407, ''I-17''s torpedo hit the tanker, flooding the engine and fire room and disabling all power and communications. At 12:05 ''Stanvac Manila'' sank, taking ''PT-165'' and ''PT-173'' with her. At about 13:00 the destroyer arrived and towed three of the surviving PT boats, ''PT-167'', ''PT-171'' and ''PT-174'' to Noumea. The remaining boat, ''PT-172'', made Noumea under her own power. One life was lost.
Loss
On 19 August 1943, southwest off Noumea ''I-17''s "Glen" floatplane
A floatplane is a type of seaplane with one or more slender floats mounted under the fuselage to provide buoyancy. By contrast, a flying boat uses its fuselage for buoyancy. Either type of seaplane may also have landing gear suitable for land, ...
made a reconnaissance flight and spotted a convoy that had just cleared the harbour. After stowing the aircraft, ''I-17'' set out after the convoy. The New Zealand armed trawler
Naval trawlers are vessels built along the lines of a fishing trawler but fitted out for naval purposes; they were widely used during the First and Second World Wars. Some—known in the Royal Navy as "Admiralty trawlers"— were purpose-built to ...
, escorting the convoy, picked up a submarine contact, she made an initial run without using depth charge
A depth charge is an anti-submarine warfare (ASW) weapon. It is intended to destroy a submarine by being dropped into the water nearby and detonating, subjecting the target to a powerful and destructive Shock factor, hydraulic shock. Most depth ...
s, a second dropping two depth charges, and a third run with another two depth charges, then lost contact with ''I-17''.[Waters, Sydney David (1956) ''The Royal New Zealand Navy'']
Page 327-328
Official History.
Kingfisher
Kingfishers are a family, the Alcedinidae, of small to medium-sized, brightly colored birds in the order Coraciiformes. They have a cosmopolitan distribution, with most species found in the tropical regions of Africa, Asia, and Oceania, ...
floatplanes of US Scouting Squadron VS-57, based in New Caledonia
)
, anthem = ""
, image_map = New Caledonia on the globe (small islands magnified) (Polynesia centered).svg
, map_alt = Location of New Caledonia
, map_caption = Location of New Caledonia
, mapsize = 290px
, subdivision_type = Sovereign st ...
, joined the search.[Carr, Jess ]
''Vs-57 and the sinking of Japanese submarine I-17''
, Naval Aviation News, September–October issue, 2001 One of these indicated that ''Tui'' should investigate smoke on the horizon, ''I-17'' was sighted on the surface and ''Tui'' opened fire at maximum range, scoring one, possibly two hits. ''I-17'' was severely damaged and sank, leaving a trail of bubbles and oil.
Five minutes later, ''I-17'' resurfaced with her bow exiting at a steep angle. The floatplane briefly strafed the submarine, before dropping more depth charges and ''I-17'' sank at . ''I-17''s with the loss of 91 of her crew. ''Tui'' rescued six survivors, who said ''Tui''s depth charge attacks had damaged ''I-17'', forced her to the surface and the Kingfisher's depth charges had sunk her.
Notes
References
* McDougall, R J (1989) ''New Zealand Naval Vessels.'' Page 59-61. Government Printing Office.
*
*
* Official Chronology of the US Navy in World War II
* Waters, Sydney David (1956
Official History.
Further reading
*Harker, Jack (2000)''The Rockies: New Zealand Minesweepers at War.'' Silver Owl Press.
*Jentschura, Hansgeorg; Dieter Jung, Peter Mickel. ''Warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1869–1945.'' United States Naval Institute, 1977. Annapolis, Maryland, USA, 1977. .
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:I-017
Type B1 submarines
Ships built by Yokosuka Naval Arsenal
1939 ships
World War II submarines of Japan
Ships of the Aleutian Islands campaign
Submarines sunk by aircraft
Japanese submarines lost during World War II
World War II shipwrecks in the Pacific Ocean
Maritime incidents in August 1943
Ships sunk by US aircraft