The Biggest Carrier Ever Built — Destroyed in One Night

The Smallest Submarine That Sank the Largest Warship Ever Built | USS Archerfish vs Shinano In November 1944, the USS Archerfish — a single American WWII submarine — sank the Shinano, the largest aircraft carrier ever built. This is the greatest submarine victory in naval history, a record that still stands 80 years later. The Shinano was a 72,000-ton Japanese supercarrier, originally laid down as a Yamato-class battleship and secretly converted after the disaster at the Battle of Midway. Commissioned just ten days before her loss, she sailed from Yokosuka Naval Base with an untrained crew and incomplete watertight compartments — a giant built for invincibility, undone by haste. Commander Joseph Enright had failed before. Months earlier he let the carrier Shokaku slip through his periscope and voluntarily gave up his command of the USS Dace. The Archerfish was his second chance — and he would not waste it. What followed was an extraordinary six-hour surface chase through dangerous Japanese waters, a fatal zigzag, six torpedoes, four devastating hits, and seven hours of unstoppable flooding before the supercarrier rolled over and sank beneath the Pacific. This WWII documentary explores the secret construction of the Shinano, the tactical decisions behind the attack, the fatal design flaws that doomed her, and the remarkable redemption of a submarine commander who refused to fail twice. ⏱️ Chapters 0:00 – The Record That Has Never Been Broken 1:15 – Commander Enright and the Failure Aboard USS Dace 3:30 – The Secret Birth of the Shinano at Yokosuka 5:45 – Rushed to Sea: An Unfinished Giant 7:30 – First Contact off Tokyo Bay 9:00 – The Six-Hour Surface Chase 11:20 – Six Torpedoes, Four Hits 13:10 – Seven Hours to Sink the Unsinkable 15:00 – Enright's Redemption and the Lasting Lesson 📌 In this video: • The largest aircraft carrier ever sunk by a submarine • How the Battle of Midway triggered Japan's carrier crisis • Why four torpedo hits were enough to sink a 72,000-ton ship • The WWII naval record that has never been broken 🔔 Subscribe for more WWII naval history and submarine warfare documentaries. #Shinano #USSArcherfish #WWIIDocumentary #SubmarineWarfare #NavalHistory #WorldWarII #PacificWar #MilitaryHistory