High cycle fatigue fracture surfaces of specimens in which failure was initiated at a subsurface inclusion were investigated by atomic force microscopy and by scanning electron microscopy. The surface roughness R a increased with radial distance from the fracture origin (inclusion) under constant amplitude tension-compression fatigue, and the approximate relationship: R a ≅ CΔK I 2 holds. At the border of a fish-eye there is a stretched zone. Dimple patterns and intergranular fracture morphologies are present outside the border of the fish-eye. The height of the stretch zone is approximately a constant value around the periphery of the fish-eye. If we assume that a fatigue crack grows cycle-by-cycle from the edge of the optically dark area (ODA) outside the inclusion at the fracture origin to the border of the fish-eye, we can correlate the crack growth rate da/dN, stress intensity factor range ΔK I and R a for SCM435 steel by the equation da/dN = 2.92 x 10 -12 ΔK I 2 and by da/dN proportional to the parameter R a . Integrating the crack growth rate equation, the crack propagation period N p2 consumed from the edge of the ODA to the border of the fish-eye can be estimated for the specimens which failed at N f >10 7 . Values of N p2 were estimated to be ∼ 1.0 x 10 6 for the specimens which failed at N f ≅ 5 x 10 8 . It follows that the fatigue life in the regime of N f >10 7 is mostly spent in crack initiation and discrete crack growth inside the ODA.