Conslaw
Senior Airman
So, I was reading on the combinedfleet.com website, and I came across the interesting page relating to the Italian submarine Luigi Torelli. This submarine served under the flags of Italy, Germany and Japan, ending the war as I-504. What might be of most interest to members of this site is the cargo voyage undertaken by the sub starting June 15, 1943. Here is the list of cargo the sub was carrying for destination Japan on this trip:
14 June 1943:
Departs Bordeaux for the Far East under TV Enrico Groppello. She carries a cargo of mercury, steel, 800 Mauser MG 151/20 aircraft cannons,[4] a 500-kg SG 500 bomb and spare torpedoes. Her passengers include Colonel Satake Kinjo, a telecommunications officer returning to Japan after extensive training in Germany, radar engineer Heinrich Foders of Telefunken who has a set of Würzburg AA radar blueprints and two civilian mechanics. Two complete sets of Würzburg radars are also carried for delivery to the IJA and IJN. [5] AQUILA VI also carries three German engineers from the U-boat builder Deshimag AG Weser at Bremen on a technical mission to Japan.
The 800 MG 151/20 cannon could have shot down a lot of Allied aircraft, except - the sub didn't make it to Japan until June 25, 1944, over a year after it departed France. I note on the cargo list the "500-kg G 500 Bomb" I suspect that this was not a bomb. I think this is a transciption/translation error for what was likely the SG-500 recoiless rifle, an anti-bomber gun initially designed for the Me-163.
If anybody has any additional information on this submarine, it's cargo or other interesting tidbits, please post. It seems to me that if the 800 aircraft cannon really made it to Japan in mid-1944, they could have been put to good use in the year plus remaining in the war. Does anyone have any information on that?
It looks like Japan did make some prototype copies of the Wurzburg radar, but by the time this radar unit made it to Japan, Japan likely had indiginious designs that were just as capable and more in tune with Japanese manufacturing methods.
14 June 1943:
Departs Bordeaux for the Far East under TV Enrico Groppello. She carries a cargo of mercury, steel, 800 Mauser MG 151/20 aircraft cannons,[4] a 500-kg SG 500 bomb and spare torpedoes. Her passengers include Colonel Satake Kinjo, a telecommunications officer returning to Japan after extensive training in Germany, radar engineer Heinrich Foders of Telefunken who has a set of Würzburg AA radar blueprints and two civilian mechanics. Two complete sets of Würzburg radars are also carried for delivery to the IJA and IJN. [5] AQUILA VI also carries three German engineers from the U-boat builder Deshimag AG Weser at Bremen on a technical mission to Japan.
The 800 MG 151/20 cannon could have shot down a lot of Allied aircraft, except - the sub didn't make it to Japan until June 25, 1944, over a year after it departed France. I note on the cargo list the "500-kg G 500 Bomb" I suspect that this was not a bomb. I think this is a transciption/translation error for what was likely the SG-500 recoiless rifle, an anti-bomber gun initially designed for the Me-163.
If anybody has any additional information on this submarine, it's cargo or other interesting tidbits, please post. It seems to me that if the 800 aircraft cannon really made it to Japan in mid-1944, they could have been put to good use in the year plus remaining in the war. Does anyone have any information on that?
It looks like Japan did make some prototype copies of the Wurzburg radar, but by the time this radar unit made it to Japan, Japan likely had indiginious designs that were just as capable and more in tune with Japanese manufacturing methods.
