NatGeo Expedition Week 2009: Hunt for the Samurai Subs

On Tuesday, November 17, 2009, National Geographic's Expedition Week presents a new video documenting the underwater archaeology discovery of three imperial Japanese submarines, all scuttled by the American forces off Oahu in 1946.

CGI Image of the I-201 Fast Attack Japanese Imperial Navy Submarine. Photo credit: (c)Wild Life Productions

"Hunt for the Samurai Subs" is entertaining and educational, and contains lots of interviews with members of the Japanese and American navies, as well as 1946 footage from one of the American servicemen who watched some of the purposeful scuttlings of the unmanned ships.

This is the kind of stuff that I like to see from National Geographic, well-researched, with interviews from the people concerned and lots of context. Several CGI images of what the subs would have looked like help understand the technology, and the search techniques are explained and illustrated well.

Read my full review and see a couple of additional photographs in National Geographic Expedition Week 2009: Hunt for the Samurai Subs.

• Hunt for the Samurai Subs: A review and two more photographs
• Hunt for the Samurai Subs on National Geographic Week
• Hawai'i Undersea Research Laboratory (HURL) on Samurai submarines