Associated Press reports on a World War II-era Japanese submarine discovered in waters off the shores of Oahu:

The submarine is from the I-400 Sensuikan Toku class of subs, the largest built before the nuclear-ballistic-missile submarines of the 1960s.

They were 400 feet long and nearly 40 feet high and could carry a crew of 144. The submarines were designed to carry three “fold-up” bombers that could quickly be assembled….

The [submarine's] mission, which was never completed, reportedly was to use the aircraft to drop rats and insects infected with bubonic plague, cholera, typhus and other diseases on U.S. cities [ed note: presumably along our West Coast].

When the bacteriological bombs could not be prepared in time, the mission reportedly was changed to bomb the Panama Canal.

It’s a good thing the war ended as quickly as it did.

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