A Japanese mega-submarine has been unearthed off the coast of the island Oahu in Hawaii, reports History.com.
Known as the I-400, the Japanese military developed the submarine in the 1940s to launch aerial attacks on the East and West coasts of the United States. The 400-foot-long submarine had the ability to carry three bomber planes.
The I-400 planned to carry out an attack on the U.S.-controlled Panama Canal, however, it was captured by American forces before the attack was launched and transported to Pearl Harbor for inspection. When the former Soviet Union asked to examine the sub under the terms of the treaty ending the war in the Pacific, U.S. forces shot and sank the vessel in 1946 to prevent the technology from ending up in Soviet hands. At the time, Americans claimed the sub had been used for target practice and claimed to have no knowledge of the vessel’s exact location.
Researcher from the Hawai’i Undersea Research Laboratory (HURL), discovered the submarine this past August.
