Researchers may have found WWII mini-sub

HONOLULU, Dec. 7 (UPI) -- The remains of a Japanese mini-sub that likely fired on U.S. battleships in Pearl Harbor's Battleship Row may have been found, researchers said.

The possible discovery could settle a dispute among World War II historians about the fate the mini-sub, part of a five-sub contingent that was to participate in the strike, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday, the anniversary of the Dec. 7, 1941, attack.

Four did not participate because they were scuttled, destroyed or run aground while the fate of the fifth remained unknown, historians said. New evidence suggests it fired its two 800-pound torpedoes, likely at the battleships West Virginia and Oklahoma, capsizing it. The mini-sub's crew apparently scuttled it in nearby West Loch, researchers said.

"It's not often that a historian gets a chance to rewrite history," marine historian and former Navy submariner Parks Stephenson said. "The capsizing of the Oklahoma is the second most iconic event of the attack. If one submarine could get in in 1941 and hit a battleship, who knows what a midget sub could do today. Iran and North Korea are both building them. It's very worrying."

Pieces of the midget sub were found during test dives between 1994 and 2001, but originally thought to be part of a war trophy from Guadalcanal, the Times reported. Stephenson in 2007 examined the remains, discovering that they could be the missing mini-sub.

Stephenson and his colleagues may have put together a scenario of circumstantial evidence, but the evidence is still circumstantial, Burl Burlingame, a journalist at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and author of "Advance Force: Pearl Harbor," told the Times.

"There is a good chance that this is the Pearl Harbor midget, but I don't think the case is closed on it," Burlingame said. "At this point, it is not hard evidence."