Qualla: Japanese Submarine I-175

Japanese Submarine I-175: Introduction

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

At 05:10 on November 24, 1943, a single torpedo from the Japanese submarine I-175 struck the escort carrier USS Liscome Bay in the stern, detonating her bomb magazine. The explosion was so violent that debris and body parts struck the battleship USS New Mexico, steaming a nautical mile away. Liscome Bay sank in twenty-three minutes, taking 644 men down with her -- among them Cook Third Class Doris Miller, the Pearl Harbor hero who had manned an anti-aircraft gun without training during the December 7, 1941 attack, becoming the first Black American to receive the Navy Cross. It was the deadliest sinking of a carrier in U.S. Navy history, and it happened because I-175 arrived at precisely the wrong moment for the Americans withdrawing from the Battle of Makin.

Read more: Japanese Submarine I-175 on Qualla

Japanese Submarine I-175: Built for a War Not Yet Declared

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

I-175 began life as I-75, laid down at the Mitsubishi shipyard in Kobe on November 1, 1934, and commissioned on December 18, 1938. She was a Kaidai-type cruiser submarine of the KD6B subclass -- 105 meters long, displacing 1,785 tons on the surface, capable of 23 knots above wate...

Read more: Japanese Submarine I-175 on Qualla

Japanese Submarine I-175: From Pearl Harbor to the Aleutians

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

I-175's war was a tour of the Pacific's bloodiest campaigns. She provided weather reports southwest of Oahu during the Pearl Harbor attack, served at Midway, and operated in the Guadalcanal campaign. By 1943, she was running supplies to beleaguered Japanese garrisons in the Aleut...

Read more: Japanese Submarine I-175 on Qualla

Japanese Submarine I-175: Twenty-Three Minutes Off Butaritari

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The sinking of Liscome Bay was not a planned attack but an opportunistic strike during chaos. I-175 was returning to Truk when the U.S. offensive in the Gilbert Islands began on November 20, 1943. Ordered to Butaritari at flank speed, she arrived as American forces were withdrawi...

Read more: Japanese Submarine I-175 on Qualla

Japanese Submarine I-175: The Depth Charges Close In

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

I-175 survived a six-hour counterattack after sinking Liscome Bay. Two destroyers dropped thirty-four depth charges, six of which detonated close aboard. She surfaced days later to report that the blasts had limited her diving depth, a wound she carried for the rest of her operat...

Read more: Japanese Submarine I-175 on Qualla

Japanese Submarine I-175: Lost with All Hands

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

On January 27, 1944, I-175 departed Truk for her tenth and final war patrol, heading northeast of the Marshall Islands with the commander of Submarine Division 12 aboard. The U.S. invasion of Kwajalein began while she was at sea, and she was redirected to reconnoiter Wotje Atoll....

Read more: Japanese Submarine I-175 on Qualla