Review by Cmdr. Peter B. Mersky, USNR (Ret.)
Perhaps the most unusual aircraft to emerge in World War II were the submarine-based, submarine-launched floatplanes, an idea that had few adherents, with the inventive Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) fielding the most examples. Until recently, the only substantial treatment of these warplanes was iconic British writer William Green’s “War Planes of the Second World War, Volume 6, Floatplanes” (Doubleday, 1963). Green set a standard for research and writing that shaped modern aviation enthusiasts, myself included. His books paired finely researched and written text with rare photographs and airbrushed three- and four-view “drawings” of aircraft never before seen in aviation literature.
This new book begins with an introductory history of one- and two-seat aircraft designed to be broken down, carried aboard submarines and launched for reconnaissance and scouting missions from World War I through the interwar years. Japan showed the greatest interest in and commitment to the concept, investing heavily in designs that could be carried, assembled and launched from its submarine fleet. The late-war Aichi M6A1 Seiran (“Mountain Haze”) marked the high point of this effort. Introduced in June 1942, the Seiran was built as an attack bomber with detachable floats and folding wings to fit within the limited spaces of a submarine. The book’s cover features a fine Tomasz Kaca illustration of a Seiran fleet overflying its submarine.
Originally, the Seiran was intended for an attack on the Panama Canal, with each aircraft carrying a large bomb. Twenty production Serians were built, and crews trained intensively for a July 1945 mission that never came. Japan’s surrender in August 1945 rendered the entire program null and void. Still, the streamlined design and advanced look of the Seiran and the extensive modifications made to existing submarines suggest that, had it been deployed earlier, this new aviation weapon could have posed a real threat to the growing Allied fleets and land-based sites.
The most well-known operational use of a Japanese Navy submarine-launched aircraft is the E14Y1 (“Glen”) mission from submarine I-25. On Sept. 9, 1942, the Glen’s two-man crew dropped two small incendiary bombs over a forest of trees in southern Oregon. After the war, the pilot, Chief Warrant Officer Nobuo Fujita, visited the United States and presented his family’s 400-year-old Samurai sword to the city of Brookings as a gesture of reconciliation. I-25 had earlier shelled Fort Stevens, Oregon, on June 21.
