Submarines of the Imperial Japanese Navy
The Imperial Japanese Navy's doctrine of fleet warfare ("guerre d'escadre") resulted in its submarines seldom posing a threat to allied merchant convoys and shipping lanes to the degree that the Kriegsmarine's U-boats did as they pursued commerce raiding against Allied and neutral merchant ships. During the war, IJN submarines did sink about 1 million tons (GRT) of merchant shipping (184 ships) in the Pacific; by contrast U.S. Navy submarines sank 5.2 million tons (1,314 ships) in the same period, while U-boats of Nazi Germany's "Kriegsmarine", the IJN's Axis partner, sank 14.3 million tons (2,840 ships) in the Atlantic and other oceans. During the last two years of the War in the Pacific, many IJN submarines were also occupied serving to transport supplies to isolated island garrisons, ones that had been deliberately bypassed by the Americans and the Australians and which could not be reached by surface transports because of blockade by Allied warplanes and naval vessels.
Japanese submarine I-1
The Japanese submarine "I-1" was a "J1 type" submarine built by Kawasaki, Kobe, for the Imperial Japanese Navy. She was a large cruiser submarine displacing 2,135 tons and was the lead of four boats built in the class.
She was commissioned on 10 March 1926 and served in the Second World War. On 29 January 1943, during Operation Ke, the New Zealand naval trawlers "Kiwi" and "Moa" intercepted and wrecked her after a surface battle at Kamimbo Bay, Guadalcanal.On 29 January 1943 she encountered the New Zealand minesweepers, "Kiwi" and "Moa". Unable to penetrate "I-1"s hull with their deck guns, the minesweepers rammed and chased her to shallow water, eventually driving her aground on the reef at Kamimbo Bay, Guadalcanal. The wreck partially protrudes from the water.