Note-1: This was almost certainly USS Permit (SS-178). Permit at 2000 (Zone-8) in Tayabas Bay 17 March sighted 3 DDs and was attacked by them at a position 15 miles east of Marinduque Island. - (Tully)

Note-2: This was USS Grampus (SS-207). Grampus is known to have survived this 17 October 1942 attack and made report, but was lost subsequently on patrol before returning home, so no details are known. - (Tully)

Note-3: This "general crediting" comes from the majority of post-war sources and reports, but were necessarily speculative. Recent testimony by Japanese veterans has clarified the issue. Whoever did torpedo Atlanta it was apparently not Akatsuki. In interviews in 1992 and 1998 her chief torpedo officer (A good summary is found in The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal: Night Action 13 November 1942- James Grace ISBN1557503273) Lt. Shinya Michiharu is adamant she was unable to launch torpedoes after being overwhelmed by gunfire after indeed illuminating Atlanta for the others. Repeated hits first disabled starboard then port machinery and the steering was knocked out. It is unclear to Shinya if she even was able to fire any guns, but stated no torpedoes. The true likely agents were thus either Inazuma or Ikazuchi, but the question remains open. - (Tully)

Note-4: "In all of her 241 men, only about a score survived. After interrogation they were taken to New Zealand, however only nine are known to have returned to Japan after the war, they landed at Uraga. More may have made it home, but decided to remain anonymous because it was felt to be a great disgrace to have been captured." (W.G.Somerville)

Note-5: It bears mention that the Shinya testimony vividly describes how Akatsuki was left slowly settling and dead in the water, in flames from the bridge aft, and listing increasingly to port. He, Commander Takasuka himself, and the Navigator (both later perished) escaped from the bridge at close to the last moment, then Akatsuki's bow reared skyward and she sank. Despite this, the otherwise fine painting commissioned for "The Lost Ships of Guadalcanal" of the Ballard expedition of 1992 (ISBN 0-446-51636-8) shows (p 138-139) Akatsuki afire and steadily sinking on an even keel; yet with bow awash. Thus oddly disregarding and contradicting the description given in the same text. To this extent the painting is potentially misleading, but accurately shows such details as Akatsuki's distinctive thinner No.1 funnel. - (Tully).

Note-6: The wreck found was sitting upright in fairly good condition and even clearly still had the first letter of its name with a cursive letter "A" in hiragana of its fantail name still visible. It had been hoped by the expedition to find Akatsuki since Torpedo Officer Shinya himself and one other survivor was with the expedition, but the location and particulars of the wreck made clear it was Ayanami. The expedition's expert naval historian Charles Haberlein had little doubt of this identification and rightly so. The Battles around Guadalcanal had resulted in a huge loss of life on both sides and the sinking of an estimated 50+ ships in what is now called "Ironbottom Sound". In this 1992 National Geographic expedition, Woods Hole oceanographer Dr. Bob Ballard searched Ironbottom Sound managed to find just 13 - but highly significant wrecks - of the estimated 50 ships sunk there.

This left many more to be discovered however. Therefore in 2015 Microsoft co-founder, historian and researcher Paul G. Allen decided to locate as many of the sunken ships as possible using the latest underwater survey technology. A plan to map Ironbottom Sound was outlined and a subsea operations team from Allen's company, VULCAN Inc., would manage the BlueFin-12 Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) sonar mapping and Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) operations from the Allen's expedition yacht M/Y OCTOPUS. Sonar mapping produced 29 wreck locations, 7 wreck debris fields and several possible aircraft locations. Of the 29 wrecks located, 6 were positively identified; eleven more wrecks were tentatively identified using the analyzed sonar imagery with vessel measurements and location information from historical records; while the remaining 12 wreck locations were not identified and require further investigation. However, it does appear that Akatsuki was among these, and a forward part at least may lay upside down on the bottom.