Japanese submarine I-158

The submarines of the KD3A sub-class were the first Japanese-designed cruiser submarines, based on experience with earlier designs based on British and German cruiser submarines. They displaced surfaced and submerged. They were long and had a beam of and a draft of . They had a diving depth of and a complement of 60 officers and crewmen. For surface running, the submarines were powered by two diesel engines, each driving one propeller shaft. When they were submerged, a electric motor drive each propeller. They could reach on the surface and submerged. On the surface, the KD3As had a range of at ; submerged, they had a range of at . The submarines had eight internal torpedo tubes, six in the bow and two in the stern. They carried one reload for each tube for a total of 16 torpedoes. They also had one 12 cm 11th Year Type naval gun| deck gun. ==Construction and commissioning==

Built by the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal at Yokosuka, Japan, I-58 was laid down on 3 December 1924. She was launched on 3 October 1925 and completed and commissioned on 15 May 1928. ==Service history==

Pre-World War II On the day of her commissioning, I-58 was attached to the Kure Naval District. and she was assigned to the new division that day. They departed Takao on 13 July 1933 and again trained in Chinese waters before arriving in Tokyo Bay on 21 August 1933. She apparently again went into reserve at Kure sometime after completing this cruise. – with one torpedo in her engine room, killing 12 men there, then sank her with gunfire at . but her surviving crew of 79 men abandoned ship in her other three whaleboats, I-58 then closed to of the swamped lifeboat and machine-gunned it as well. Seventy-nine men died in the machine-gunning of the three lifeboats, one of whom had clung to one of the submarine′s diving planes. in broken English, demanding information on Langkoeas′s identity, departure port, cargo, and destination and on secret Allied codes and signals, threatening them with punishment after each question if they withheld information. On 7 January 1942, they drifted ashore on Bawean, where local fishermen found them and summoned help. but one source claims that all on board died in the sinking and suggests that those who survived the sinking itself may have been massacred by I-58′s crew. On 28 February 1942, I-58 torpedoed the British 6,735-gross register ton tanker in the Indian Ocean south of the Sunda Strait at ". She operated in a patrol line between and which also included the submarines , , , , , and . The Japanese suffered a decisive defeat on 4 June 1942 during the Battle of Midway, and that day the commander-in-chief of the 6th Fleet, Vice Admiral Teruhisa Komatsu, ordered the 15 submarines in the Japanese submarine patrol line to move westward. The Japanese struck her from the navy list on 30 November 1945. She moved to Sasebo and in March 1946 was stripped of all usable equipment. The Commander, Naval Activities, Japan, U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Robert H. Griffin, came aboard I-158 to inspect her in March 1946. ==Disposal==

On 26 March 1946, the U.S. Navy received orders to sink all captured Japanese submarines. On 1 April 1946, the U.S. Navy submarine tender towed I-158 from Sasebo to an area off the Gotō Islands, where she was one of a number of Japanese submarines scuttled that day in Operation Road's End. She sank at . ==References==