I was cruising through the National Archives today and found a short video clip of a Japanese submarine in operation.
There is no sound to the clip, but it is pretty fascinating to observe the crew and the boat in action.
Based on her configuration, only one of the pre-war submarines I identified in Jane’s Pocket Book of Submarine Identification, the boat featured was most likely an L class. Specifically, she most closely resembles the Ro-58, originally named Submarine No. 47. She was an Imperial Japanese Navy Type L submarine of the L3 subclass. She was in commission from 1922 to 1945. During World War II, she served on second-line duties in Japan.
Design and description
The submarines of the Type L3 sub-class were copies of the Group 2 subclass of the British L-class submarine built under license in Japan. They carried heavier torpedoes than the preceding submarines of the L1 and L2 subclasses. They displaced 903 tons (889 long tons) surfaced and 1,120 tons (1,102.7 long tons) submerged. The submarines were 72.89 meters (239 ft 2 in) long and had a beam of 7.16 meters (23 ft 6 in) and a draft of 3.96 meters (13 ft 0 in). They had a diving depth of 60 meters (197 ft).
For surface running, the submarines were powered by two 1,200-brake-horsepower (895 kW) Vickers diesel engines, each driving one propeller shaft. When submerged, each propeller was driven by an 800-shaft-horsepower (597 kW) electric motor. They could reach 17.1 knots (31.7 km/h; 19.7 mph) on the surface and 9.1 knots (16.9 km/h; 10.5 mph) underwater. On the surface, they had a range of 5,500 nautical miles (10,200 km; 6,300 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph); submerged, they had a range of 80 nmi (150 km; 92 mi) at 4 knots (7.4 km/h; 4.6 mph).
The submarines were armed with four internal 533 mm (21 in) torpedo tubes, all in the bow, and carried a total of eight 6th Year Type torpedoes. They were also armed with a single 76.2 mm (3 in) deck gun and a 6.5 mm machine gun.
theleansubmariner 
spotless uniforms, Thanx for sharing