Japanese submarine I-122

I-122, laid down in 1925 as Submarine No. 49 and known as I-22 from her construction period until June 1938, was an of the Imperial Japanese Navy that served during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II. During the latter conflict, she conducted operations in support of the Japanese invasion of Malaya, the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, the bombing of Darwin, the Battle of Midway, the Guadalcanal campaign, the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, and the New Guinea campaign. From mid-1943 she served as a training ship in Japanese waters until she was sunk during a training voyage in 1945. After she was renumbered I-122 in 1938, the number I-22 was assigned to a later submarine which also served during World War II. I-122 and her three sister ships — I-21 (later renumbered ), I-23 (later renumbered ), and I-24 (later renumbered ) — were the Imperial Japanese Navy's only submarine minelayers. They were known in Japan by the type name Kirai Fusetsu Sensuikan, commonly shortened to "Kiraisen"-type submarine. The Kiraisen-type design was based on that of the Imperial German Navy minelaying submarine , a Type UB III submarine which was the largest of seven German submarines transferred to Japan as a war reparation after World War I and served in the Imperial Japanese Navy as O-6 from 1920 to 1921. Like UB-125, the Kiraisen-type submarines had two diesel engines producing a combined , could carry 42 mines, and had four torpedo tubes and a single deck gun — a gun on the Japanese submarines in contrast to a gun on UB-125. Compared to the German submarine, they were larger — longer, and displacing 220 more tons on the surface and 300 more tons submerged — and had a longer range both on the surface — farther at — and submerged — farther at . They were slower than UB-125 both surfaced and submerged, carried two fewer torpedoes, and had could dive to only compared to for UB-125. Built by Kawasaki at Kobe, Japan, I-122 was laid down on 28 February 1925 with the name Submarine No.