Wetherhorn

Japanese submarines were given identification numbers in a series following an initial Kata character that was used to indicate what size or class of submarine was being numbered. The Kata characters “I” (), “RO” (),and “HA” () indicated large medium and small submarines. “HA”, by the way, is pronounced “WA”. There were also some Japanese Army transport submarines that received numbers after the syllable “YU” which was the first syllable of the Japanese word for a transport vehicle. I have never had any models of “YU” class submarines in my collection. The “HA” class included midget attack submarines and some small Navy transports. Japanese submarines usually had their number displayed on the side of the conning tower or sail when in port.