The 19th I-gou submarine is Japanese Navy's Type B1 cruiser submarine. They're also called I-15 class submarine after the first ship of their class. I-19, the third ship, is launched on September 16th 1939 and commisioned on April 28th 1941.At 11:45 and distance of 900 m, USS Wasp heads upwind to prepare for landing of her returning scout plane. As her speed drops, I-19 launched 6 oxygen torpedoes. Among these, 3 hits on the mark. The fuel on Wasp catches fire and causing chain explosion as it reached the ammunitions. Finally Wasp is scuttled by allied destroyers.Story about life in submarine wouldn't fit in this article. But the Japanese movie "Gouchin Indo-you Sensuikan Sakusen Kiroku" featured important video documentation about life in I-19's sister ship, the 37th ship of I-gou submarines (but the number is I-10).And that's why I enjoy drawing her. But leaving her as flagship in medium~heavy damage is not safe.The other three torpedoes keep cruising for 10,000 metres until they reached Task Force 17. Both the battleship North Carolina and destroyer O'Brien are hit each by one torpedo. O'Brien is heavily damaged and finally breaks in half on October 19th because of that damage. North Carolina is out of the war for 6 months for repairs.After that event, I-19 is assigned to raiding operation around Truk and sunk merchant ships. But on November 25th 1943, she's sunk by depth charges from USS Radford.Ehehehehe~ Type B submarines alone accounts for 42% of the sinking of merchant ships during the warAs illustrated here, submarines of WW2 can't stay underwater for long period like modern submarines.Japanese submarine in general can be classified into two groups. First is the high speed Kaidai class. The other is the Junsen that's made for long operational range.
But after Japan renounced the naval treaty in 1936, they start building submarine to be part of their main battle force. Japanese Navy developed submarine based on the cruiser submarine with increased speed, effectively combining the strength of the Kaidai and Junsen.
These submarines are then called Type A, B and C.First of all, her greatest achievement in war is when she damaged and sunk three ships in one torpedo salvo. This happened in September 15th 1942 when I-19 (captain: Kinashi Takakazu) in the Guadalcanal Island campaign, detected the aircraft carrier USS Wasp, one cruiser and numerous destroyers at 15,000 metres.If all the cruiser submarines (including Type B2 and B3) were featured... we would have 20 sisters!. This is as much as the Toku-gata (Fubuki class destroyer).
Moreover, I-19's displacement is 2,198 tonnes, while the upper limit specified in London Naval Treaty is 2,000 tonnes. So yes, she's big.
I'm sure there's a lot of Admirals who still can't forget the shock when they first time got her.
"This... this is... NICE!"
