Qualla: Japanese Submarine Ro-41

Japanese Submarine Ro-41: Introduction

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

On the night of March 22, 1945, the radar operator aboard USS Haggard picked up a surface contact at 25,000 yards -- more than twelve nautical miles out in the dark Pacific. What followed was a violent, close-quarters engagement that ended with a destroyer ramming a submarine at full speed, the crunch of steel on steel audible above the roar of the sea. The submarine was almost certainly Ro-41, a vessel that had already drawn American blood off Morotai six months earlier. She sank by the stern shortly after midnight, taking all 82 of her crew with her into the deep waters east of Okinawa.

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Japanese Submarine Ro-41: Built for Speed and Depth

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Ro-41 belonged to the Kaichu K6 sub-class of the Imperial Japanese Navy, an evolution of the earlier K5 design built for greater range and diving capability. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries laid her keel at Kobe on October 6, 1942, originally designating her Submarine No. 207. She sl...

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Japanese Submarine Ro-41: Blood Off Morotai

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Ro-41's most consequential action came on October 3, 1944, in the waters off Morotai Island, where Allied forces had established a major base for the coming invasion of the Philippines. The destroyer escort USS Shelton was screening a group of escort carriers when Ro-41 attacked....

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Japanese Submarine Ro-41: The Final Patrol

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

By March 1945, Ro-41 was operating under increasingly desperate orders. She departed Saeki on March 18 as part of a submarine force tasked with intercepting the formidable U.S. Navy Task Force 58. Some historians have speculated that Ro-41 may have sunk the American submarine USS...

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Japanese Submarine Ro-41: Rammed in the Dark

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Later that same night, USS Haggard was serving as a radar picket 12 nautical miles ahead of Task Force 58. Her radar detected a surface vessel at 25,000 yards just before midnight. Haggard and the destroyer USS Uhlmann closed the range. The contact vanished from radar -- the subm...

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