SENSUIKAN!
HIJMS Submarine RO-40: Tabular Record of
Movement
© 2001 Bob Hackett & Sander Kingsepp
28 September 1943:
Kobe. The RO-40 is completed at Mitsubishi's yard, commissioned in the IJN and based in the Maizuru Naval District. LtCdr Kido Yasuo is the Commanding Officer. She is assigned to SubRon 11 for workup and training.
20 November 1943: American Operation "GALVANIC" - The Invasion of the Gilberts:
Forces under Vice Admiral (later Admiral) Raymond A. Spruance, Commander, Central Pacific, invade and capture Tarawa and Makin Islands.
1 January 1944:
The RO-40 is in Rear Admiral Owada Noboru's (former CO of YAMASHIRO) SubRon 7 in SubDiv 11 with the I-42, -43, -52, -183, -184 and the RO-41, -43, -113 and RO-114.
15 January 1944:
Reassigned to SubDiv 34, Sixth Fleet.
20 January 1944:
Departs Maizuru.
29 January 1944:
Arrives at Truk.
31 January 1944: American Operation "FLINTLOCK" - The Invasion of the Marshall Islands:
Vice Admiral (later Admiral) Marc A. Mitscher's Task Force 58 lands the 4th Marine Division and the Army's 7th Infantry Division that capture Kwajalein, Roi-Namur and Majuro.
12 February 1944:
The RO-40 departs Truk for the Makin area. No messages are received from her thereafter.
12 February 1944:
Departs Truk for an area E of Gilberts via Marshalls on her first war patrol.
16 February 1944:
45 miles NW of Kwajalein, Marshall Islands. A submarine makes an approach on a American convoy. At 1742, LtCdr D. L. Martineau's USS PHELPS (DD-360) makes sonar contact at 1,700 yards. The PHELPS drops a pattern of 13 depth charges on the contact. Cdr J. W. Ramey's MACDONOUGH (DD-351) and Lt F. K. Zinn's minesweeper SAGE (AM-111) then join the hunt and lay patterns of depth charges that sink the submarine - probably the RO-40 - at 09-50N, 166-35E.
20 February 1944:
The CINC, Sixth Fleet, Vice Admiral (Admiral, posthumously) Takagi Takeo (former CO of MUTSU) redirects RO-40 into an area between Kwajalein and Brown Island to raid enemy supply routes between Hawaii, Tarawa and Makin.
4 March 1944:
The RO-40 fails to acknowledge the order to return.
28 March 1944:
Presumed lost with all 69 hands in the Gilberts area.
30 April 1944:
Removed from the Navy List.
Authors' Note:
Special thanks for help in preparing this TROM go to Dr. Higuchi Tatsuhiro of Japan. – Bob
Hackett and Sander Kingsepp
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