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.
Scuttling
To prevent a Soviet inspection team from examining surrendered Imperial Japanese Navy submarines after World War II, the United States Navy conducted Operation Road's End, in which it scuttled 24 of the submarines in the East China Sea off Fukue Island on 1 April 1946. Nine more Japanese submarines followed on 5 April, and another six went down by early May. In addition, U.S. Navy submarines sank four surrendered Japanese submarines as targets in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii in May and June 1946, and the Royal Australian Navy sank six or seven (sources differ) surrendered Japanese submarines in the Seto Inland Sea on 8 May 1946 in Operation Bottom.