HURL research vessels retrieve historic bell off sunken sub

Pisces submersible retrieves the bell of a sunken Japanese Imperial Navy's giant submarine. Image courtesy of HURL.

It was a small brass bell on a giant Japanese submarine — the I-400. The World War II vessel was large enough for a crew of 144 and three planes to boot. The year was 1946 when the U.S. captured the sub and then torpedoed it to keep its secrets out of Russian hands.

Re-discovered three years ago by the crew of the Hawai‘i Undersea Research Laboratory (HURL), the little bell sat in waters more than 2,000 feet deep until the Bowfin Museum secured the proper permits for its retrieval. “We located this bell and we got to talking about the fact that this bell should really be in a museum in all to see. When we are down on the wrecks that we find, it really connects you,” said HURL pilot Terry Kerby.

Read more about it — including how HURL’s two Pisces submersibles retrieved the bell by working together — in the UH System News, at Live Science, and at New Historian; watch the video report at KITV4.

UPDATE: Read and watch the KITV4 report about the postponed HURL mission to the South China Sea.