Submarines of the Imperial Japanese Navy
The IJN submarine arm did have a number of notable successes against American warships, however. During the Battle of Midway, administered the final "coup de grace" that sank the fleet carrier , as well as sinking the destroyer . A few months later, on September 15, 1942, with a single salvo of torpedoes, Japanese submarine sank the fleet carrier and damaged both the battleship and the destroyer . On November 13, 1942, the submarine torpedoed and sank the anti-aircraft cruiser , and a year later on November 23, 1943 the submarine torpedoed and sank the escort carrier , both with heavy loss of life. The had the distinction of both severely damaging the heavy cruiser , knocking her out of the war for a year, on October 20, 1942, and of also sinking (the only American submarine to be sunk by a Japanese submarine in the entire war) on November 16, 1943.
List of warships sunk during the Russo-Japanese War
Although submarines, torpedoes, torpedo boats, and steel battleships had existed for many years, the Russo-Japanese war was the first conflict to see mature forms of these weapon systems deployed in large numbers. Over a hundred of the newly invented torpedo boats and nearly the same number of torpedo boat destroyers were involved. The Imperial Russian Navy would become the first navy in history to possess an "independent operational submarine fleet" on 1 January 1905. With this submarine fleet making its first combat patrol on 14 February 1905, and its first clash with enemy surface warships on 29 April 1905, all this nearly a decade before World War I even began.