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The South Korean Navy’s lead 3,000‑ton‑class submarine Dosan Ahn Chang‑ho (SS‑III) — which departed Jinhae Naval Base on March 25 to take part in joint naval exercises with Canada in June — arrived at Pearl Harbor‑Hickam Joint Base in Hawaii on June 4 (Korean time) to load supplies. The submarine displaces roughly 3,000 metric tons.
According to the Navy, after a first port call at the U.S. naval base in Guam on April 7, the Dosan Ahn Chang‑ho stopped in Hawaii to take on logistics. After resupplying, it is scheduled to sail with two Canadian submarine crew members (noncommissioned officers) to Esquimalt Harbour in British Columbia to join the joint drills.
A Navy official said the deployment will showcase the operational capabilities of South Korea’s first indigenously designed and built submarine and is expected to strengthen maritime security and defense‑industry cooperation between South Korea and Canada.
This marks the first time a South Korean submarine has crossed the Pacific for a joint exercise. The one‑way transit from Jinhae to Canada’s west coast covers roughly 14,000 km (about 7,700 nautical miles), making it the longest voyage in the history of the Republic of Korea Navy’s submarine operations.
The Dosan Ahn Chang‑ho is due to arrive in Canadian waters at the end of May alongside the Navy’s Daegu‑class frigate Daejeon (FFG‑823) for the exercises. The submarine is then expected to return to Hawaii to participate in the U.S. Navy‑led multinational maritime exercise RIMPAC at the end of June.
At RIMPAC, running June 24–July 31, the South Korean Navy will, for the first time, have a flag officer at the rear admiral level serve as commander of a combined naval task force. Seoul plans to deploy the Dosan Ahn Chang‑ho along with the Aegis destroyer Jeongjo the Great and P‑8 maritime patrol aircraft to the exercise.
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