The Day Japan's Submarine Fleet Died in the Pacific

Between 19 and 31 May 1944, one American destroyer escort found and sank six Japanese submarines in twelve days — including the entire forward scouting line the Imperial Japanese Navy had deployed to warn of the American advance. No warship in any navy has ever come close to that record. This documentary reconstructs the destruction of Japan's submarine arm from the records: the largest and longest-ranged submarines in the world, carrying floatplanes in pressure-tight hangars and the best torpedo of the war, which sank the carriers Yorktown and Wasp and damaged the battleship North Carolina in a single year. It covers the decision taken at Guadalcanal in late 1942 to use fleet submarines as freighters, and what a fixed destination on a fixed schedule does to a weapon whose only defence is being an unknown position. It covers why depth charges killed only five to seven per cent of the time, the forward-throwing Hedgehog that solved the problem by keeping sonar contact through the whole attack, the crews who nearly abandoned it because a miss produced silence, and the intercepted deployment order that turned a seven-boat picket line into a list of coordinates. Built from attack reports, loss tables and anti-submarine analysis records — not from the legends. Subscribe for the definitive history of the United States in the Second World War — new documentaries every few days. #ww2 #worldwarii #pacificwar #usnavy #wwiihistory #submarinewarfare #USSEngland #hedgehog #DestroyerEscort #militaryhistory #USAInWW2