Japanese battleship Ise
Despite the expensive reconstruction, the ship was considered obsolete by the eve of the Pacific War, and did not see significant action in the early years of the war. Following the loss of most of the IJN's large aircraft carriers during the Battle of Midway in mid-1942, she was rebuilt with a flight deck replacing the rear pair of gun turrets to give her the ability to operate an air group of floatplanes; lack of aircraft and qualified pilots meant that "Ise" never actually operated her aircraft in combat. She participated in the Battle of Cape Engaño in late 1944, where she decoyed the American carrier fleet supporting the invasion of Leyte away from the landing beaches. Afterwards the ship was transferred to Southeast Asia; in early 1945 "Ise" participated in Operation Kita, where she transported petrol and other strategic materials to Japan. The ship was then reduced to reserve until she was sunk during American airstrikes in July. After the war "Ise" was scrapped in 1946–1947.
USS McKean (DD-784)
A salvage ship, the submarine rescue ship , arrived out of Sasebo on 20 December, to join the five destroyers and three anti-submarine airplanes at the site of the sinking. A hard hat diver was lowered to the scene. In a very short time he returned to the surface with a pair of new binoculars. In addition the Russian submarines had deployed during the depth charge a decoy that made all the sounds of a submarine. This Black Box was so top secret the "Greenlet" immediately returned to Pearl Harbor with it. Rumor has it the "Greenlet" was not allowed to return to the war area because it had retrieved so many Russian secrets. Perhaps it got their code books? Rumor also has it that 43 days later all the B girls knew everything that happened, but the crew couldn't say anything because they had signed the letters of secrecy. The story the crew was told was that it was a "sunken Jap freighter the "Iona Maru". Supposedly the "Iona Maru" capsized on 10 December 1950. The Navy brass had already formatted their cover story with the skipper of the USS "Greenlet". "If those binoculars were from WWII, why wasn't there debris or barnacles, on the item". Recently a former shipmate commented, "We sunk a hulk ship that was doing five knots!".