been I-35. After patrolling near Wake Island, I-35 received orders on 23 October 1943 to move to the Hawaii area. She was southwest of the Hawaiian Islands on 19 November 1943 when she was informed that Submarine Group A had been reactivated and received orders to proceed to Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands along with the submarines , , , and . On 20 November 1943, the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign began with the U.S. invasion of Tarawa and of Makin. On 21 November 1943, I-35 reported sighting a U.S. Navy task force — probably Task Group 53.6, consisting of the escort aircraft carriers , , and and the destroyers escorting them — southwest of Tarawa. The Japanese never heard from her again and declared her missing that day. Loss On 23 November 1943, I-35 crash-dived off Tarawa Atoll when an aircraft attacked her with bombs at 05:20. Undamaged, she proceeded east. She was west of Betio that afternoon when the destroyer detected the sound of her propellers. The destroyer joined Meade, and between 15:30 and 17:38, the two destroyers attacked I-35 with depth charges five times. After Meade made the fifth attack, I-35, which had suffered heavy damage and was leaking in a number of places, was forced to surface and engage the destroyers with gunfire. Both destroyers opened fire on her with and 40-millimeter guns. At 17:51, Frazier rammed I-35 on her port quarter aft of her conning tower, badly damaging her own bow but rupturing I-35′s pressure hull. After Frazier backed away, I-35 sank by the stern at with the loss of 92 members of her crew. The destroyers launched boats, which found four survivors of I-35 in the water. One of them opened fire on an approaching boat crew, which returned fire and killed him, but the boats rescued the other three. The three survivors said that they believed that I-35 had been in combat with two cruisers, that the cruisers had launched two floatplanes, and that the floatplanes had bombed the submarine, with one bomb striking the ammunition box for her deck gun. On 10 January 1944, the Imperial Japanese Navy — unaware that the destroyers had rescued three survivors — declared I-35 to be presumed lost with all hands in the Gilbert Islands area. She was stricken from the Navy list on 10 April 1944. Notes Sources Hackett, Bob & Kingsepp, Sander. IJN