72,000 tons. That’s how much the Japanese aircraft carrier Shinano weighed. The largest aircraft carrier ever built at the time. Larger than anything the world had seen. Larger than anything that would be built for another decade. To put that in perspective, that’s heavier than the Titanic, heavier than most World War II battleships.

A floating city the size of three football fields, armored like a fortress with a flight deck thick enough to withstand bombs that would obliterate any other carrier. The Japanese called her unsinkable. Designed to survive 20 torpedo hits, 20. Most carriers in World War II went down after three or four torpedo impacts.

Shinano was engineered to take 20 and keep fighting. She lasted 10 days. November 29th, 1944, the aircraft carrier Shinano, 10 days out of the shipyard on her maiden voyage, is steaming through the Pacific night with an escort of three destroyers. She’s carrying over 2,000 men loaded with supplies and aircraft destined for the Philippines, representing Japan’s last desperate hope for naval dominance in a war they’re already losing.

And hunting her is USS Archerfish, a single American submarine commanded by Joseph Enright, a man with everything to prove and nothing to lose. In the next 7 hours, Enright will fire six torpedoes at the largest target any submarine commander has ever engaged. Four will hit. And when the sun rises on November 30th, 72,000 tons of Japanese super carrier will be at the bottom of the Pacific, taking 1,400 men in Japan’s last hope with it.
This is the story of the greatest submarine kill in naval history. The story of how four torpedoes destroyed what 20 were supposed to fail against. The story of one night when everything that could go wrong for Japan went catastrophically, impossibly wrong. 72,000 tons, 10 days old, unsinkable, gone.Let’s start with Shinano because to understand how catastrophic her loss was, you need to understand what she was supposed to be. 1940 Japan is preparing for war with the United States and the Imperial Japanese Navy is building the largest warships the world has ever seen. The Yamato class battleships. Yamato and Mousashi each displacing over 70,000 tons, mounting 18in guns that could fire shells the size of small cars over 25 m.

And there was supposed to be a third. Hull number 110 laid down at Yokosuka Naval Arsenal in May 1940. Originally designed as Shinano, the third Yamato class super battleship. But then December 7th, 1941 happened. Pearl Harbor proved that naval warfare had fundamentally changed. Aircraft carriers, not battleships, were now the dominant capital ships.

And 6 months later, the Battle of Midway hammered that lesson home. when Japan lost four of its frontline carriers in a single day. So in June 1942, the Japanese Navy made a decision. Hull 110 would not be completed as a battleship. Instead, she would be converted into an aircraft carrier. Not just any aircraft carrier, the largest, most heavily armored, most survivable carrier ever conceived.

This is where Shinano became something unique. Most aircraft carriers are built for speed and aircraft capacity. They’re long, relatively thin skin ships designed to launch and recover planes quickly. They’re not built to take punishment. They’re built to avoid it. Shinano was different. Because she started life as a battleship, she had a battleship’s armor.

16 in of steel belt armor along the waterline, an armored flight deck 8 in thick. Most carriers had wooden flight decks. Watertight compartmentalization that divided the ship into hundreds of separate sealed sections. The design philosophy was simple but revolutionary. Build a carrier that could survive everything the enemy could throw at it and keep operating.

Japanese naval architects calculated that Shinano could absorb 20 torpedo hits distributed across the home before flooding would threaten to sink her. 20. For context, USS Yorktown at Midway took two torpedo hits and eventually sank. HMS Ark Royal took one torpedo and went down. Most carriers were lucky to survive three hits.

Shinano was supposed to be invulnerable. But building the world’s largest aircraft carrier in the middle of a losing war presents certain problems. By 1944, Japan is being systematically destroyed. American submarines are strangling Japanese supply lines. American bombers are hitting Japanese cities. The Pacific Island chain is collapsing.

And American forces are getting close enough to threaten the Japanese home islands, which means Yokosuka naval arsenal, where Shinano is being built, is now within range of American B29 bombers. So in November 1944, the Japanese Navy makes a rush decision. Commission Shinano immediately get her out of the shipyard and move her to a safer location where she can be completed and fitted out properly.

November 19th, 1944, Shinano is officially commissioned. She’s not complete, not even close. Watertight doors aren’t all installed. Damage control systems aren’t fullyoperational. The crew hasn’t completed training, but she’s seaorthy enough for a short voyage, and that has to be good enough.

The plan: sail from Yokosuka to Kuray Naval Base about 340 m along the Japanese coast, where she can be finished in relative safety. One short voyage, hug the coast, three destroyer escorts for protection, travel at night to avoid American aircraft. What could possibly go wrong? November 28th, 1944, 6 p.m. Shinano departs Yokosuka.

Captain Toshio Abbe is in command, a experienced officer, but this is his first time commanding a ship this size. Aboard are 2,176 officers and men, plus hundreds of civilian workers still installing equipment. The ship is loaded with supplies, 50 training aircraft, spare parts, ammunition, fuel. She’s not carrying her operational airwing yet.

Those will be assigned once she reaches Kur. The destroyer escorts take position. Isocaz, Yuki Kaz, and Hamakaz. Experienced warships that have survived multiple battles. Their job, protect the giant carrier during her vulnerable maiden voyage. Shinano steams out of Tokyo Bay into the Pacific, maintaining 18 knots, following a zigzag pattern to make herself harder to target.

On the bridge, Captain Abbe feels confident. His ship is the most heavily armored carrier ever built. They’re hugging the Japanese coast where American submarines rarely operate. They have destroyer escorts actively hunting for threats, and they’re traveling at night when submarine attacks are most difficult. What Captain Abbe doesn’t know is that 200 miles ahead, USS Archerfish has just surfaced to recharge her batteries, and she’s directly in Shinano’s path.

Now, let’s talk about Commander Joseph Enright, because the story of Shinano’s sinking is also the story of a man with everything to prove. November 28th, 1944. USS ArcherFish, submarine SS 311 is on her fifth war patrol. She’s a Balau class fleet submarine, 312 ft long, displacing 1,500 tons surfaced, 2,400 tons submerged, fast, reliable, and armed with 10 torpedo tubes, six forward, four aft.

and commanding her is 35-year-old Joseph Enight, a man who is, by his own admission, hunting for redemption. Here’s why. May 1943, Enright was commanding a different submarine, USS Dace, on patrol in the Pacific, and he had what submariners call a golden opportunity. His submarine encountered a Japanese aircraft carrier with minimal escort, perfect firing position.

ideal range, a shot that should have been automatic. And right fired and missed, not because of bad luck, not because of equipment failure, because he miscalculated the target speed and fired at the wrong moment. Every torpedo passed harmlessly ahead or a stern of the carrier. The US Navy doesn’t relieve commanders for one mistake.

But Enight was rotated off days and spent months in administrative assignments while other submarine commanders were racking up kills and earning medals. It’s the kind of failure that haunts a naval officer, the shot you missed, the opportunity you wasted, the enemy that got away because you made a mistake. But the Navy gave Enright a second chance.

In March 1944, he was given command of USS Archerfish, and he’s been on patrol ever since, methodically hunting Japanese shipping, determined to prove he belongs in command of a fleet submarine. By November 1944, Enright has made ArcherFish into one of the most efficient boats in the Pacific. The crew trusts him.

The boat runs smoothly, but he hasn’t had the big score. The kind of kill that erases past failures and makes a reputation. That’s about to change. November 28th, 1944, 8:48 p.m. Archer Fish is running on the surface southeast of Tokyo Bay, recharging her batteries after a day spent submerged. Surface running is risky, but necessary.

Diesel electric submarines like ArcherFish run on battery power when submerged, but those batteries need to be recharged regularly by running the diesel engines. And diesel engines need air, which means surfacing. It’s a clear night, calm seas, good visibility, which is both good and bad for a submarine. Good because you can see threats coming.

Bad because threats can see you, too. And then the radar operator calls out a contact. Radar contact bearing 090. Range 25,000 yards. 25,000 y about 12 nautical miles. And it’s a big contact. Multiple ships moving fast, heading southwest along the Japanese coast. Enright makes it to the bridge in seconds.

He raises his binoculars, scanning the horizon. And then he sees them. Four ships, three smaller vessels, destroyers, clearly escorts. And in the center, something massive. A silhouette too large to be a cruiser. Too large to be a battleship. Enright has been hunting submarines in the Pacific for 2 years. He knows every major Japanese ship class by silhouette, and he’s never seen anything this big.

Officer of the deck. Sound general quarters all ahead flank come to course 090. Archer fishes clacks and sounds throughout the boat. Men scramble to battle stations. The submarine surgesforward. Diesel engines roaring at maximum power trying to get into attack position. But there’s a problem. The target is fast.

Radar plots the contact at 18 to 20 knots. faster than archer fish can manage on the surface. And it’s zigzagging, changing course every few minutes to throw off submarine attacks. This is every submarine commander’s nightmare scenario. You found a target, a massive important target, but it’s moving too fast and maneuvering too well for you to catch it.

But Enight has one advantage. He knows these waters. He knows the Japanese coastal routes and he can predict where that target is going. Navigator, plot a course to intercept. Assume they’re heading for the key straight. Calculate where they’ll be in 3 hours. The key straight, the passage between Hanu and Shikoku Islands is the gateway to the inland sea and Japan’s major naval bases.

If this is a capital ship heading to safety, that’s where it’s going. Enright makes his decision. Instead of chasing directly after the target, he’ll race ahead, position ArcherFish in the target’s projected path, and wait. It’s a calculated gamble. If he’s wrong about the target’s destination, he loses contact and waste the opportunity.

If he’s right, he’ll be perfectly positioned for an attack. For the next 4 hours, ArcherFish races south at maximum speed. diesel engines straining, trying to get ahead of the target while staying on the surface to maintain speed. And all the while, Enright is thinking about May 1943, about the carrier he missed, about the shot he wasted, about the reputation he’s still trying to rebuild.

He’s not going to miss this time. November 29th, 1944, 12:10 a.m. Just after midnight, Archer Fish has been racing south for over 3 hours, and Enright is starting to second guessess his decision. They’ve lost radar contact with the target. They’re running on assumptions and calculations. And if those assumptions are wrong, they’ve wasted an entire night chasing ghosts.

And then the radar operator’s voice breaks the tension. Contact bearing 270, range 12,000 yd. They’re back. Enright’s gamble paid off. The Japanese task force is exactly where he predicted, steaming southwest toward the key straight. And now Archer Fish is ahead of them in perfect position. Diving officer, take her down to periscope depth. Make ready all tubes.

Prepare for attack. Archer fish slips beneath the surface, trimming to periscope depth about 60 ft. Silent running protocols take effect. Non-essential equipment shut down. Crew moving carefully to minimize noise. The boat becomes a ghost, drifting silently in the dark Pacific, waiting for the target to come to her.

Enight raises the periscope, and for the first time, he gets a clear look at what he’s been chasing. Jesus Christ. Through the periscope, Enright sees something that shouldn’t exist. An aircraft carrier so massive it makes every other ship he’s ever seen look like a toy. The flight deck stretches almost 900 ft, longer than three city blocks.

The island superructure rises like a mountain, [clears throat] and the sheer mass of the hull displaces water in a way that creates a bow wave visible even in darkness. Enright has studied silhouettes of every Japanese carrier. He knows Akagi, Kaga, Shokaku, Zuiaku, all the carriers that fought at Pearl Harbor in Midway.

This isn’t any of them. This is something new, something the intelligence reports never mentioned. A super carrier. What Enight doesn’t know, what he can’t know is that he’s looking at Shinano, the largest carrier ever built, Japan’s most closely guarded naval secret, a ship so classified that even most Japanese naval officers don’t know she exists.

But Enight doesn’t need to know her name. He just needs to sink her. The problem, she’s fast, she’s maneuvering, and she has three destroyer escorts actively screening for submarines. Attacking a target this large with destroyer protection is incredibly dangerous. The destroyers are equipped with sonar depth charges and aggressive ASW tactics.

If they detect archer fish before the torpedoes are away, the submarine becomes the target. Enight needs to get close within 3,000 yards for an optimal shot, but not so close that the destroyers pick him up on sonar. Come to course 240. All ahead 1/3. Make ready tubes 1 through six. Archer fish maneuvers slowly, silently, positioning herself for a shot.

The torpedo data computer, the mechanical analog computer that calculates firing solutions, is fed information. Target speed, bearing, range, angle on the bow. But there’s a problem. The target keeps zigzagging. Every few minutes, Shenano alters course, standard anti-ubmarine doctrine. Each course change invalidates the firing solution and forces Enright to recalculate.

This is the art of submarine warfare. Not just launching torpedoes, but predicting where the target will be when the torpedoes arrive. Torpedoes travel at about 45 knots. The target is moving at 18 knots. You’re firing at where thetarget will be in 90 seconds, not where it is now.

Get it wrong and you waste torpedoes and alert the escorts. Get it right and you sink the biggest target any submarine has ever engaged. For 40 minutes, Enright stalks Shinano, tracking her zigzags, calculating her base course, waiting for the perfect moment. The crew is silent, tense. Everyone knows this is the big one. The kind of target that comes along once in a career, if ever.

And then Enright sees it. Shinano completes a zigg and steadies on a new course. For the next few minutes, she’ll be on a straight, predictable heading. This is the moment. Final bearing and shoot. Standby tubes one through six. The fire control party makes the final calculations. Range 1,400 yd. Target speed 18 knots. Angle on the bow 70° starboard.

Spread torpedo salvo with slight angle between each weapon to maximize hit probability. Enright’s hand hovers over the firing button. He’s thinking about May 1943, about the carrier he missed, about every calculation that went wrong that day. Not this time. Fire one. Fire two. Fire three. Fire four. Fire five.

Fire six. Six Mark1 14 torpedoes leave Archer Fish’s forward tubes at 4second intervals. Each weighs 3,200 lb, carries 640 lb of torpex explosive, and runs at 46 knots toward the massive target. All fish running hot, straight, and normal. Now comes the worst part. Waiting. Torpedoes at 1,400 yards running at 46 knots will take approximately 90 seconds to reach the target.

90 seconds where anything can go wrong. Shanano could turn. Torpedoes could malfunction. Destroyers could detect the torpedo wakes and counterattack. The crew counts silently. 60 seconds, 70 seconds, 80 seconds, and then the first explosion echoes through Archer Fish’s hole. A deep, satisfying underwater concussion that every submariner recognizes.

Torpedo hit. A second hit. Four hits. Four torpedoes out of six have slammed into Shinano’s starboard side in quick succession, detonating against the massive carrier’s hull. The crew erupts in subdued cheers. In the confined space of a submarine, you don’t celebrate too loudly. Sound carries underwater, but the relief and triumph are palpable.

Enright allows himself a moment of satisfaction. Four hits on a target this size should be catastrophic. four torpedoes, each with 640 pounds of explosive, punching into the carrier side. Any normal ship would be crippled or sinking, but Shinano is not a normal ship. Let’s talk about what just happened from Shinano’s perspective. 3:17 a.m. November 29th.

Most of Shinano’s crew is asleep or at routine watch stations. The ship has been steaming for 9 hours without incident. Captain Abbe is confident they’ll reach Kuray safely and then four massive explosions tear into the starboard side of the ship. The first torpedo hits a midship, punching through the outer hole plating and detonating in one of the boiler rooms.

The explosion kills everyone in the compartment instantly and floods the space with seawater. The second torpedo hits 20 ft away, breaching another boiler room. More flooding, more casualties. The third and fourth torpedoes hit forward and after the first two, creating a line of breaches along Shinano’s starboard side.

Here’s where Shinano’s design should save her. Remember, this ship was designed to survive 20 torpedo hits. She has watertight compartmentalization specifically engineered to contain flooding from multiple breaches. The damage control doctrine is simple. seal the damaged compartments, pump out flooded spaces, maintain buoyancy and stability.

And initially, it seems to work. Captain Abbe receives damage reports. Four torpedo hits, multiple compartments flooded, but the ship is still making headway, still under power. The list to starboard is noticeable, but not critical. AB makes his assessment. The damage is serious but manageable. Shinano can make it to Kur.

Once there, repairs can be made in a protected harbor. He orders the ship to maintain course and speed. Damage control parties are deployed to seal breaches and pump out water. The escort destroyers are ordered to hunt for the submarine, but not to slow the convoy. What Captain Abbe doesn’t realize is that Shinano has a fatal flaw.

Remember, Shinano was commissioned early, rushed out of the shipyard to escape American bombing. Many systems aren’t complete, and crucially, not all of the watertight doors are properly installed or functioning. In theory, each flooded compartment should be isolated. In practice, water is spreading through incomplete bulkheads, through temporary openings where equipment was still being installed, through passages that were supposed to be sealed but aren’t.

And the crew, many of whom have been aboard for less than 2 weeks, doesn’t know the ship well enough to contain the flooding effectively. Within 30 minutes of the torpedo hits, Shinano’s list to starboard has increased from 5° to 10°. Not critical yet, but concerning. Meanwhile, aboard ArcherFish, Enrighthas ordered the submarine deep and is running silent, evading the destroyer escorts.

Standard procedure after a torpedo attack. Get away from the scene as quickly and quietly as possible. The destroyers will be searching furiously, and staying around to observe the results is a good way to get death charged. Enright doesn’t know if he sank the target or just damaged it. Four hits should be enough, but this target was enormous. It might survive.

All he can do is wait, evade, and hope. Back on Shinano, the situation is deteriorating. 4:00 a.m., 1 hour after the torpedo attack, the list has increased to 12°. Pumps are running at maximum capacity, but they can’t keep up with the flooding. Water is now spreading to compartments that weren’t initially breached.

Captain Abbe is starting to realize the severity of the situation. He orders all available crew to damage control efforts. Non-essential personnel are moved to the port side to counterbalance the list. Speed is reduced to 15 knots to minimize water pressure on the breaches, but it’s not enough. 5:00 a.m. 2 hours after the attack, the list is now 15°.

Shano is visibly leaning to starboard. Flooding has reached the engine rooms. Power generation is compromised. Pumps start failing. And then the unthinkable happens. The flooding reaches the forward aviation fuel storage tanks. Aviation fuel. Thousands of gallons of highly flammable gasoline meant for the carrier’s aircraft begins leaking into flooded compartments.

The fuel floats on top of the seawater, spreading through the ship, creating a toxic, explosive atmosphere. Crew members in flooded compartments start passing out from fuel fumes. Others vomit from the overwhelming chemical smell. And everyone knows what happens if there’s an ignition source. 6:00 a.m. 3 hours after the attack.

List 18° Captain Abe makes the hardest decision of his career. Shinano cannot be saved. The flooding is uncontrollable. The list is worsening. The ship will capsize within hours. And if the fuel vapors ignite, the entire ship could explode. He orders preparations to abandon ship. 7:00 a.m. 4 hours after the torpedo attack.

Dawn is breaking over the Pacific and Shinano is dying. The list has reached 23°. The massive carrier is leaning so far to starboard that walking on the deck is difficult. Equipment is sliding across compartments. Men are clinging to railings to stay upright. And the ship is settling lower in the water as more compartments flood.

Captain Abbe gives the order to abandon ship at 7:30 a.m. But abandoning a ship this size with over 2,000 men aboard is not a simple process. Many of the lifeboats weren’t properly installed. Remember, the ship was rushed out of the shipyard incomplete. Life rafts have to be manually launched, and the severe list makes it nearly impossible to launch boats from the port side.

Men start jumping into the water. Some with life jackets, some without. The three destroyer escorts move in to pick up survivors, but they can’t get too close. If Shinano capsizes, the suction could pull nearby ships down with her. 9:00 a.m. 6 hours after the attack, Shinano’s list has reached 30°.

The flight deck is now angled like a steep hillside. The massive ship is rolling onto her side. Captain Abbe is still aboard along with hundreds of crew members who couldn’t get off in time. There’s a tradition in naval service. The captain goes down with his ship. But Abbe knows his duty. Survive to report what happened, to testify about the loss, to help prevent future disasters.

But it might be too late. 10:18 a.m. 7 hours after the torpedo attack, Shinano capsizes. The massive carrier rolls completely onto her starboard side, the flight deck now facing the water. For a moment, she floats there sideways like a beached whale. Men trapped inside the ship are thrown against bulkheads.

Water rushes through every opening, flooding compartments that were still dry seconds before. The sounds inside the dying ship are described by survivors as hellish. Screaming metal, rushing water, and the cries of trapped men. And then Shinano begins her final plunge. The stern rises out of the water as the bow goes down. The enormous propellers, three stories tall, rotates slowly in the air.

And then with a sound like distant thunder, the largest aircraft carrier ever built slides beneath the surface. 1057 a.m. Shinano is gone. Of the 2,176 men aboard, 1,435 died. Some drowned in flooded compartments. Some were trapped when the ship capsized. Some died in the water, exhausted, unable to reach rescue ships.

Captain Abbe survived, pulled from the water by one of the destroyers. He would spend the rest of his life haunted by the loss of his ship and his men. Now, let’s talk about what this meant for Japan. Shannana wasn’t just another aircraft carrier. She was a symbol, proof that Japan could still build super weapons, still compete with American industrial power, still turn the tide of the war, and she was gone in 10 days.

The loss was so catastrophic, so embarrassing that the Japanese government classified it at the highest level. Even after the war ended, many Japanese citizens didn’t know Shinano had existed and been sunk. The families of the dead were told their loved ones died in training accidents or classified operations. For the Americans, the sinking was a massive intelligence windfall.

Once they figured out what they’d sunk, remember Enright didn’t know what he’d hit. He knew it was a large carrier, but he couldn’t identify it. When Archer Fish returned to base and filed her patrol report, naval intelligence was skeptical. You sank a 72,000 ton carrier, the largest carrier ever built, a carrier we have no intelligence on.

Sure you did, Commander. It took months of analysis, intercepted Japanese communications, and post-war records to confirm USS ArcherFish had sunk Shinano, the largest warship ever sunk by a submarine, a record that stands to this day. Joseph Enight received the Navy Cross, second only to the Medal of Honor.

His crew received commendations and Enright’s reputation was not just restored but cemented as one of the greatest submarine commanders of the war. The failure of May 1943, the carrier he missed, was erased by the success of November 1944. Archerfish continued on war patrols until Japan surrendered in August 1945. She survived the war, was eventually decommissioned, and sunk as a target in 1968.

But her legend lives on. The submarine that killed the giant, the boat that sank the unsinkable. And what about Shinano’s design? Was it fatally flawed? Not exactly. Naval architects who studied the sinking concluded that if Shinano had been complete, if all watertight doors had been installed, if the crew had been fully trained, if damage control systems had been operational, she probably would have survived the torpedo attack.

But she wasn’t complete. She was rushed into service, sent on a voyage she wasn’t ready for. With a green crew and unfinished systems, the Japanese made a calculated gamble. risk the incomplete ship on a short voyage or risk losing her to American bombers in the shipyard. They chose the voyage and they lost everything.

So, let’s come back to where we started. 72,000 tons. The largest aircraft carrier ever built at the time. Designed to survive 20 torpedo hits. Declared unsinkable. 10 days in service, four torpedo hits, 7 hours to die. The sinking of Shinano is one of those historical events that seems almost too improbable to be true. A super carrier on her maiden voyage, barely out of the shipyard, encounters a lone submarine commanded by a man with a reputation to rebuild.

One perfect shot, four hits out of six torpedoes. And the largest warship ever sunk by a submarine goes to the bottom with 1,435 men. But it’s not just a story about luck. It’s about preparation meeting opportunity. Enright didn’t just stumble onto Shinano. He tracked her for hours, predicted her course, positioned his submarine perfectly, and made every calculation count.

It’s also about the cost of rushing. Japan needed Shinano operational, so they sent her to sea incomplete. And that decision, born of desperation and the realities of a losing war, sealed her fate. Today, Shinano rests on the floor of the Pacific about 35 mi southeast of Cape Shiono, Japan. She’s never been found. The water is too deep, and the exact location of her sinking wasn’t precisely recorded. But her story endures.

Remember Shinano. Remember that unsinkable is a word that engineers use in the ocean mocks. Remember that the biggest ship is only as strong as its weakest watertight door. Remember USS Archer Fish and Commander Joseph Enlight, the submarine and the man who made the impossible shot. Remember the 1,435 Japanese sailors who died aboard a ship that never had a chance to fight.

And remember that in war, as in life, sometimes the biggest targets fall the hardest. 72,000 tons, 10 days, four torpedoes gone.