I-26 in Hiroshima Bay, late October 1941.
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History | |
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Empire of Japan | |
Name | Submarine No. 139 |
Builder | Kure Naval Arsenal, Kure, Japan |
Laid down | 7 June 1939 |
Launched | 10 April 1940 |
Renamed |
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Completed | 6 November 1941 |
Commissioned | 6 November 1941 |
Fate | Sunk 17 November 1944 |
Stricken | 10 March 1945 |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | Type B1 submarine |
Displacement |
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Length | 108.7 m (356 ft 8 in) |
Beam | 9.3 m (30 ft 6 in) |
Draft | 5.1 m (16 ft 9 in) |
Propulsion |
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Speed |
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Range | 14,000 nautical miles (26,000 km; 16,000 mi) at 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph) |
Test depth | 100 m (328 ft) |
Complement | 94 officers and men |
Armament |
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Aircraft carried | one seaplane |
I-26 was an Imperial Japanese Navy B1 type submarine commissioned in 1941. She saw service in the Pacific War theatre of World War II, patrolling off the West Coast of Canada and the United States, the east coast of Australia, and Fiji and in the Indian Ocean and taking part in Operation K, preparatory operations for the Aleutian Islands campaign, and the Guadalcanal campaign, the Marianas campaign, and the Battle of Leyte Gulf. She was the first Japanese submarine to sink an American merchant ship in the war, sank the first ship lost off the coast of State of Washington during the war, damaged the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga (CV-3), sank the light cruiser USS Juneau (CLAA-52), and was the third-highest-scoring Japanese submarine of World War II in terms of shipping tonnage sunk. Her bombardment of Vancouver Island in 1942 was the first foreign attack on Canadian soil since 1870. In 1944, I-26′s crew committed war crimes in attacking the survivors of a ship she sank. She was sunk in November 1944 during her ninth war patrol.