WASHOUGAL — When Bud Knapp looked at the front page of The Columbian on Dec. 7, he was shocked to see an archive photograph of a World War II Japanese submarine.
Knapp had seen that ship before, back when he was stationed at Pearl Harbor during World War II. But that’s not all: Knapp has a piece of that ship.
It’s a voltmeter from a two-man submarine that was part of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and Knapp has kept it for almost 75 years.
HA-19 was one of five mini-submarines assigned to sneak into Pearl Harbor and fire torpedoes during the attack. Only one mini-sub made it inside the harbor, where it was spotted and sunk.
HA-19 was found washed ashore on Dec. 8, and its surviving crewman was captured.
Knapp, who had enlisted in the Navy with three friends on Dec. 2, 1941, arrived in Pearl Harbor about a month later.
“They had cleaned up the loose stuff,” Knapp said, but America’s Pacific stronghold was still pretty much a disaster area when he arrived.
At that point, the captured submarine had been pulled off the beach and hauled to the naval base so it could be examined.
Knapp was working in an electrical shop at the Pearl Harbor submarine base when a haphazard collection of wires and instruments under the workbench caught his eye.
“It was wiring and meters and all kinds of electrical parts,” he said.
They certainly weren’t for U.S. Navy ships because the meters and dials had Japanese characters on them. They had come from the captured submarine.
“I decided this one looked pretty good to me,” Knapp said, nodding at the voltmeter on a table at Columbia Ridge Senior Living, where he and wife Beverly live. “So I took it.”
Maritime archaeologist James Delgado confirmed that the voltmeter came from a WWII Japanese mini-submarine. After seeing an image of Knapp’s WWII keepsake, Delgado replied: “The meter definitely came from a ko-hyoteki (type A) midget. I recognize the type,” said Delgado.
The former Vancouver resident is director of maritime heritage for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. His role in a study of the Japanese mini-sub assault on Pearl Harbor was the focus of The Columbian’s story 10 days ago.
Knapp isn’t the only person who wound up with a piece of that submarine after it was captured.
“The sub was stripped and many items were given away or auctioned to support the war bond drive,” Delgado wrote in an email.
HA-19 actually raised a lot of money for the American war effort, thanks to a national war-bond tour.
Knapp, meanwhile, transferred out of his Pearl Harbor electrical shop.
“I wanted to go to sea. That’s where the real Navy is,” Knapp said.
He was assigned to the USS Denver, a newly commissioned light cruiser, and took part in combat operations in the Pacific.
The Denver was struck by three shells from enemy surface ships during a naval battle near Bougainville, but none of them exploded. About two weeks later, the cruiser was hit by a torpedo; the damaged knocked the Denver out of action for seven months. It returned in June 1944 to take part in the Allied advance toward Japan.
“We did 11 different invasions, including the first shots fired in the Philippines,” Knapp said.
