Submarine vs. Kongo: The Night Ambush That Sank a Japanese Battleship

On November 21, 1944, the American submarine USS Sealion found three Japanese battleships in the dark, including the Yamato, the largest warship ever built. The Japanese detected her radar and decided it was a plane. Before dawn, the battleship Kongo was gone. It was the only time in World War II that a U.S. submarine sank a battleship. But the torpedoes that hit the Kongo were set too shallow, her captain kept steaming at 16 knots, and her own speed turned two torpedo hits into a death sentence. This is the full story of the night ambush in the Formosa Strait, told from both sides: the submarine captain who thought he had failed, and the Japanese crew who believed until the last hour that their ship would make it home. In this documentary: Why Lt. Cmdr. Eli Reich carried the names of four dead men into battle How a surfaced submarine outran and outflanked a battleship fleet at night The shallow torpedo setting that looked like a mistake and became the killing blow Why the Kongo sank from two hits, hour by hour, from Japanese records The 5:24 AM magazine explosion that lit up the East China Sea What happened to the same Japanese destroyers eight days later ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 Three battleships on the radar 01:38 Cavite, 1941: four names 04:12 The battleship built in England 05:38 Six bombs that missed 07:00 The fleet sails for home 08:15 "It's probably a plane" 09:26 Contact at 44,000 yards 11:56 The surface attack 13:59 Hits on the Kongo 17:12 "I set them too shallow" 19:04 Killed by her own speed 22:55 The target stops 26:19 5:24 AM: the explosion 29:46 Eight days later: the Shinano 31:25 How submarines strangled Japan 📚 SOURCES Anthony P. Tully, "Total Eclipse: The Last Battles of the IJN" / "The Loss of Battleship KONGO" (CombinedFleet.com) Hackett, Kingsepp & Ahlberg, "IJN Battleship KONGO: Tabular Record of Movement" (CombinedFleet.com) Thomas Wildenberg, "To Sink a Battleship," Naval History Magazine, U.S. Naval Institute (August 2023) VADM Eli T. Reich, Reminiscences of Eli T. Reich, U.S. Naval Institute Oral History (1978) USS Sealion (SS-315) War Patrol Report, Third Patrol Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships: Sealion II (SS-315) Joint Army-Navy Assessment Committee (JANAC), Japanese Naval and Merchant Shipping Losses During World War II (1947) Naval Undersea Museum, Sealion II Battle Flag This channel tells the stories of World War II through the people who lived them, with historical accuracy first. Visuals are artistic reconstructions for illustration. 🔔 Subscribe for more WWII stories: after action, told in full. #WWII #USSSealion #BattleshipKongo #SubmarineWarfare #PacificWar #NavalHistory #WW2History