According to Van Tillburg, it looks more like a Cold War submarine than a WW2 ship, build for high speed underwater travel. The I-401 was its sister vessel. That one was located in 2005, and it was capable of carrying 144 people through 37,000 miles, it was three times the size of modern submarines. Japan wanted to use these ships to launch aerial attacks in the continental United States. To do this, it used three Aichi light bombers, each capable of carrying an 800-kilogram bomb. When their mission was complete, the bombers returned to the submarine, landing on the water using floats.

The Japanese also had a dirty trick in their pockets: Use the submarines to drop big cans full of rats infected with the plague and insects loaded with cholera, dengue, and typhus. They never were able to put that in practice, however. The Americans delivered a big can full of atoms to them first.

These two submarines were so advanced that, after being captured and inspected by the United States, they were sunk so the Soviets couldn't inspect them. The Japanese were the pioneers in developing advanced aerial attack technology for submarines. The sea-to-air cruise missile was developed later, during the Cold War period. Nowadays, the US Navy is working on submarine-launched drones, which can take off from underwater. [National Geographic via Daily Mail]

It was about freaking time. Turing, a father of computer science and WWII code-breaker, confessed to having sex with a man, was prosecuted by the British government for being gay, given experimental chemical castration as a "treatment" and then committed suicide in 1954. Ridiculous, is right.

So after thousands signed the recent petition, UK PM Gordon Brown had this to say:

While Mr Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can't put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him.

So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan's work I am very proud to say: we're sorry, you deserved so much better.

Brown is dead on. It can't be changed. Nothing will change the fact that this man was physically harmed for his sexual orientation, but acknowledging it happened and saying sorry for it is a step in remembering this incredible geek and his legacy. This seriously makes our day. [BBC]

Turing committed suicide two years after his prosecution in 1954. He is most well known for his Nazi enigma code breaking work for the British during the second World War and his helping establish a test to measure the intelligence of a machine which is now known as a Turing Test.

We owe him so much for his work during the big war, and for what he's done for us as geeks. He was a hero in every sense of the word. So far more than 5,500 signatures have been collected on the Downing Street petition started by computer scientist John Graham-Cumming. Author Ian McEwan put his John Hancock on the petition. I'd sign up but it looks like you need a UK address. So if you'd like to see Alan Turing get his apology, maybe you can leave a comment here as well. [BBC]

While reading PW Singer's Wired for War, I was surprised by the ingenuity on both sides in coming up with unmanned—and even radio-controlled—machines that were occasionally actually used during the two biggies. I've highlighted six, plus an exceptional example of early computer intelligence, that are all covered at some length in the book.

(If you're skimming this, just be sure to watch the second YouTube video below.)

WORLD WAR I

FL-7 remote-controlled boat (1916) - Sadly unpictured - These German "sprengbootes" carried 300lbs. of explosives and were tethered by 50-mile wire to a dude on shore, sitting in a tower 50 feet up. The controller was too vulnerable perhaps, because they soon moved him into an airplane buzzing overhead, still trailing that long-ass cable.

Ultimately, they decided to do like Nikolai Tesla did in 1898 at Madison Square Garden with his little motorboat (seen at right), and go R/C. More info on the World War II version of the FL.

Sopwith AT "Aerial Torpedo" (1917) - Maker of Snoopy's famous Sopwith Camel biplane decided that it was possible to do the same thing, only radio controlled and full of explosives, call it the "Aerial Torpedo" and steer it into German Zeppelins. Trouble was, on its test flight, it tried to dive bomb a gathering of generals instead. Whoopsie. More info on the Sopwith AT, and another remote controlled plane of the era, the Queen Bee Tiger Moth.

Wickersham Land Torpedo (1917) - Another ill-fated warbot, this one was startlingly close in looks to the PackBots of today, with its two tank treads. But instead of a sophisticated computer brain, this one packed 1,000 pounds of explosive and a rudimentary remote control. Unfortunately for people who like big booms, it never went into production. More information on that and more "unknown" tanks here, sketch here and photo here.

WORLD WAR II

OQ-2 Radioplane aka "Dennymite" (1935) - Actor and World War I hero Reginald Denny opened a hobby shop in the 1930s, and when the specter of World War II loomed, he introduced army personnel to their first target drone, the RP-1. They were impressed, and after several modifications and name changes, Denny was making them by the thousands at an airport in Van Nuys. (As fate would have it, it was at Denny's factory in 1944 that an army photographer spotted a super hot Rosie the Riveter named Norma Jeane, who soon went platinum blonde and changed her name to Marilyn Monroe.) More information on the OQ-2 and Marilyn Monroe's discovery.

Fritz X guided bomb (1939) - Another specialty from Germany—the people who brought you the better known "buzzbombs," this one was pretty much a straight-up bomb, but it had radio-controlled fins, so it wasn't exactly smart, but it weren't dumb neither. More info on Fritz here and here.

Goliath remote-controlled tank buster (1940) - If the Germans had time to work on their tank skills between the wars, they also had a little time to hone the tank-killing 'bot. The Goliath has the same classic look as the American Land Torpedo, but managed to be far more effective. This startlingly vivid clip shows actual footage of Germans—sometime during the last gasps of the Nazi regime—steering one into a tank to blow it up.

Norden bomb sight (1932) - If the unmanned vehicles above represent prototypes in the body designs we see in today's land, air and sea robots, the Norden bomb sight was the precursor to their cold, calculating brains.

A telescope would pick out a single spot on the ground, a series of gyroscopes and motors would hold that spot in sight, an analog computer would figure out the trajectory of the bombs needed to hit the target, and the whole thing would engage the plane's autopilot to make sure the bombing went down as planned. You don't have to read Catch-22 to know that, on bombing runs, nothing ever really went as planned, but the Norden was the closest they had to AI back in WWII, and there's a reason it was said to "put a bomb in a pickle barrel from 20,000 feet" (even if that's not going to do the bomb or the pickle barrel any good). More info here and here.

War nerds, please fill in the comments with your own knowledge of the above unmanned metal-and-gear beasts, or any other favorite ones I might have skipped, and so help me the first commenter to say "These are not robots" gets banned for stating the obvious, and being kind of a wiener about it.

If you haven't yet read through our interview with Wired For War's PW Singer, have a look. And stay tuned for more exciting nuggets of info from the book, a trove of robot trivia not to mention a chilling portrayal of how robots have already infiltrated our military.

This tunnel is actually one of eight built by the British government during World War 2 as a network of bomb shelters to protect citizens from the German blitz. They could hold 8,000 people and were designed to function for five weeks without any assistance from the outside world. This "protection" even included "a bar and two canteens, not in use, and a billiard room, not to mention functioning water and electricity supplies," reports the New York Times.

However, after their completion, the tunnels were held aside to serve as secret bases of operations for soldiers. They were never used as shelters. Instead, they served as a temporary base for D-Day troops; one even became the European HQ for U.S. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower. Later, in 1944, the tunnels became bastions of counterintelligence, as members of the secret service used them to coordinate resistance movements in Nazi-controlled countries. The tunnels, once filled with Normandy invaders, were decked out with spy gear, telephones and teleprinters.

Today, though, the tunnels are empty, and waiting for some rich playboy real estate tycoon to swoop in and buy them up. Won't you take up that standard, and invite us poor gadget-loving folk to a few parties below the busy London streets? Please? [New york Times]

Wind machines were used way back in 200 B.C. by the Persians, who managed to put the wind crunchers to use for grain grinding purposes. Skip a few years ahead, and you have the first Megawatt wind turbine (pictured), which was set up on a hilltop in Rutland, Vermont, and provided power to the local grid during WWII. The turbine was affectionately known as "Grandpa's Knob." Charming. Thanks for attending Wind Turbine Retromodo 101; there'll be a test next week, so get revising. [Live Leak; Wiki]