on the role of their submarines in it. He had been designated the commander of the Special Attack Unit, made up of all five submarines, each of which was to launch a Type A midget submarine off Pearl Harbor so that the midget submarines could participate in the attack. I-22 was to serve as flagship of the Special Attack unit. On 18 November 1941, the five submarines moved from Kure to the Kamegakubi Naval Proving Ground, where each embarked a Type A midget submarine. At 02:15 on 19 November 1941, the five submarines got underway from Kamegakubi bound for the Hawaiian Islands, taking a direct route that took them south of Midway Atoll. While at sea, they received the message "Climb Mount Niitaka 1208" () from the Combined Fleet on 2 December 1941, indicating that war with the Allies would commence on 8 December 1941 Japan time, which was on 7 December 1941 on the other side of the International Date Line in Hawaii. World War II Pearl Harbor At 02:57 on 7 December 1941, I-20 launched her midget submarine, No. 17, south of Oahu from the entrance to Pearl Harbor. After the United States Navy coastal minesweeper reported an unidentified submarine in a submarine exclusion zone off Pearl Harbor, the destroyer began a search for the submarine at 04:08, finding nothing. At 06:30, however, Ward sighted No. 17′s conning tower in the wake of the general stores ship , which was approaching the harbor′s outer gate with a target barge in tow. A PBY Catalina flying boat of Patrol Squadron 14 (VP-14) dropped smoke markers to indicate the midget submarine′s position. Ward opened gunfire on the submarine at 06:45 at a range of only , firing the first shot of World War II by the American armed forces. She closed the range to and hit No. 17′s conning tower with a shell. Ward steamed past the midget submarine and dropped four depth charges as it wallowed in her wake, and the PBY then dropped more depth charges. No. 17 sank outside the harbor′s entrance with the loss of her two-man crew. On 28 August 2002, the Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory deep submergence vehicles Pisces IV and Pisces V found a midget submarine resting almost upright on the bottom in of water off the entrance to Pearl Harbor, prompting speculation among historians and maritime archaeologists that it was I-20′s midget.