  
This was the most numerous class of Japanese submarines. These boats were fast, long-ranged, and carried a seaplane, which could be launched on a forward catapult.
My model will completed as the I-26, a submarine which has particular significance to me.
The quiet solace of Estevan Point Lighthouse, a landmark only minutes from my home, was shattered on the evening of June 20, 1942 when a Japanese submarine surfaced in the darkness two miles off Estevan point.
The Japanese submarine I-26 fired between twenty-five and thirty rounds of 5.5 inch shells directly at the station. Fortunately the gunners had remarkably poor aim, missing the light station and the nearby settlement of Hesquiat.
Estevan Point went down in history as the first place where enemy shells had struck Canadian soil since 1812.
Accounts published after the war left no doubt that the shellfire came from a submarine's deck gun and Commander Yokota of the Japanese submarine I-26 freely admitted to the attack.
Although no casualties were reported, the event had serious repercussions for mariners on the west coast. The lights of the outer coast stations were turned off to prevent their use by submarines, virtually paralysing the shipping that remained on the coast during the war years.
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