Imperial Japan:
The crew of Aoba class heavy cruiser
Kinugasa manning the rails during her commissioning at Kobe, September 30, 1927
Submarine I-176 likely just after her commissioning, late 1942
The most successful submarine of her class, she severely damaged the
heavy cruiser USS Chester in October 1942 and sank the submarine
USS Corvina in November 1943, the only Japanese submarine to sink one of her American counterparts.
I-176 was sunk in May 1944 in the western
Pacific by the American
destroyers Franks,
Haggard and
Johnston.
She was spotted by a US patrol plane whose radio reports summoned the destroyers
USS Franks (DD-554),
USS Haggard (DD-555) and
USS Johnston (DD-557) to the scene. On the morning of May 16, the destroyers began to comb the waters off Buka.
Haggard made a sonar contact at
4°1′S 156°29′E. at 21:45 and began dropping
depth charges. The other destroyers joined in, carrying out a series of depth-charge attacks that continued for several hours. The following morning, the destroyers found evidence of the destruction of
I-176 – fragments of
sandalwood and
cork and paper marked with Japanese words. There were no survivors