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The Vanished Golden Submarine’s Final Journey and Fate

Khalid Elhassan December 8, 2024 14 min

I-52 - Underwater wreckage of the Golden Submarine — Underwater wreckage of the Golden Submarine. National Geographic

13. The Yanagi Missions

I-52 - Japanese submariners in Brest, German-occupied France, 1943 — Japanese submariners in Brest, German-occupied France, 1943. Wikimedia

The Japanese had initially planned to build twenty of the Type C3 underwater behemoths. However, as things turned out, they ended up building only three, with the I-52 being the first of the trio to enter operational service. Throughout the entire war, the Type C3s only carried out six long distance missions known as Yanagi (“exchange”) between the Axis partners. Of the three cargo submarines, two were lost in action during the conflict, and only one survived the war. As to the Germans, they also sent several U-boats on hazardous missions to Japan, although they were not part of the Yanagi scheme.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.