Earlier this week, researchers from the University of Hawaii and the Hawaii Underwater Research Lab located the remains of a Japanese midget submarine. Found in 1200 feet of water, the submarine was sunk by the USS Ward just an hour before the aerial attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Most important, the discovery of the midget submarine offers concrete physical evidence that the United States did fire the first shot against the Japanese. Previous expeditions to locate the sub, including an effort made in 2000 by the National Geographic Society, had been unsuccessful, largely due to the fact that the area is a military "junkyard" with tons of debris on the ocean floor.

For more in-depth information on this story, readers may find the first four news links particularly helpful. The fifth link leads to the Hawaii Underwater Research Lab's Web site that features photographs of the midget sub from the expedition earlier this week. The sixth link is to a Web site dealing with the history and missions of the USS Ward. The final link contains detailed information about the 2000 expedition led by Robert Ballard, with support from the National Geographic Society, to find the midget submarine.