It’s September 9th, 1942, and forest workers have just discovered what appears to be a bomb crater in the heavily forested area around Brookings, Oregon. Townsfolk had also reported hearing a small aircraft flying around the town earlier in the day. And so the bomb debris spread over the sodden forest floor is put down to some stupid trainee pilot dropping his practice bomb load in the wrong place.
What was not known at the time was that Oregon had just become the first target in the Contiguous US to be hit by Japanese aircraft, and only the weather had saved the state from a raging forest fire.
This is the story of how a two-man crew nearly brought the horrors of the Second World War to the shores of the United States.
Background To The attack
By September 1942, the US had been engaged in WW2 for less than a year. After their surprise attack on Pearl Harbour the previous December, Japanese forces have been advancing on all fronts. Despite the successful defense of the island of Midway in June 1942 by American forces, victory was still not guaranteed in the Pacific.
At this point, Both the United States and the Empire of Japan’s home fronts were protected by one key factor, distance.
For the Japanese, this sense of security had been shattered by an audacious carrier-based bombing raid led by Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle. Although a relatively minor strategic attack, the operation in April 1942 highlighted the huge propaganda value of hitting an invulnerable enemy right where he felt safe.
In December 1941, It had been feared that the Japanese would follow up their devastating attack on Pearl harbour with a land invasion on the West coast of America. If this had happened, likely Japanese forces would have advanced deep in-land before any effective defense could have been organized.
These fears were compounded in June 1942 when Japanese forces landed on the Aleutian islands on the Alaskan peninsula. Incidentally, this was the only other mainland American territory to be bombed during WW2.
If supported, this occupation could lead to a push through the State of Alaska and Canada right through the United States. America was still getting onto a war footing while Japan had been in combat for nearly a decade. The danger was very real.
Despite the heavy fighting that increasingly consumed American forces from 1942, the American population was thankfully relatively untouched by the conflict. While Britons, Russians, and citizens of occupied nations died in their thousands, the American way of life changed very little. There was a feeling that ‘they can’t touch us here’.
Japan aimed to change that, and quickly.
The issue facing the Japanese high command was, how do you bomb a country like the United States surrounded by miles of oceans? Even with a foothold in the Aleutians, major cities remained outside any contemporary bomber’s range.
The Americans had indeed overcome this when launching the daring Doolittle raid earlier that year. Despite losing four aircraft carriers in the Battle of Midway, Japan still had 8 operational ones, twice as many as the Americans. An aircraft carrier raid along the same lines was feasible. These, however, were needed for other battles as the Japanese attempted to secure their grip on vital resources across the Asian continent.
One plan that was hit upon by the Japanese was to use the prevailing winds which run West to East from Japan to the US. By launching unmanned balloons full of high explosives, the Japanese could indiscriminately bomb the American homeland while limiting the resources dedicated to the campaign. Although the damage might be light the ever-present fear of attack from the air, just as many Londoners ( and my own Grandparents included) experienced with the doodlebug flying bomb, was hoped to chip away at US morale.
Several balloons were launched from Japan and made their way to the mainland US. Again, the state of Oregon would be one of the victims.
In Lakeview, Oregon, Mrs. Elsie Mitchell, and five neighborhood children were killed while attempting to drag a Japanese balloon out of the woods. Unbeknownst to Mitchell and the children, the balloon was armed, and it exploded soon after they began tampering with it.
They were the first and only known American civilians to be killed in the continental United States during World War II. The U.S. government eventually gave $5,000 in compensation to Mitchell’s husband, and $3,000 each to the families of Edward Engen, Sherman Shoemaker, Jay Gifford, and Richard and Ethel Patzke, the five slain children.
At the same time, another strategy was being hatched to bomb the US. This time coming from the Japanese navy and a young Warrant Flying Officer.
Who was Nobuo Fujita?
The story of Nobuo Fujita’s war and men like him is, to my mind, absolutely fascinating. Fujita was the pilot of a small naval float plane which was carried onboard a long-range Japanese submarine in a water-tight hanger. It was the job of Fujita and his observer Petty Officer Okuda Shoji to mount reconnaissance raids and collect intelligence on enemy installations, and these two popped up in the most unusual of places.
Sailing in the Japanese submarine I-25, Fujita was present during the attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941. He was supposed to mount a reconnaissance flight that morning, but his Yokosuka E14Y “Glen” aircraft was non-operational.
After the attack, I-25 patrolled the Western Coast of America attacking shipping and would even sink a Russian submarine, mistaking the then-neutral sub for an American.
I-25, after resupplying, set sail for Australia, where Fujita mounted flights over the harbours of Sydney, Melbourne, and Hobart. I’ve been to Sydney several times to visit my brother and I can just imagine this small Japanese plane flying over the harbour bridge.
The submarine then continued on to New Zealand where Fujita did the same type of patrol over Wellington on 8 March and then over Auckland 5 days later. He is the only enemy pilot to have flown over New Zealand territory during WW2 and the second in her history.
By May I-25 was back in American waters helping to prepare for the invasion of the Aleutians. It was at this point that Fujita suggested the idea of directly attacking the American mainland with his floatplane. The suggestion was given official support.
The Action
Around 6 am on the morning of September 9th the small float plane was unpacked from its hangar on top of the Japanese submarine. It was armed with two 170-pound thermite incendiary bombs.
These specially designed bombs each contained 520 firing elements that would spread over an area more than 100 yards in diameter when the bomb exploded, and start to burn at 2,700 degrees. So, although a fairly light armament, they had the potential to ignite a fierce forest fire all over the heart of the Pacific Northwest.
Creating fires in this region was hoped to divert manpower to fight the flames and prevent future attacks, further diluting American forces in the Pacific. The attack on American society’s feeling of security was an added bonus.
As Fujita and Shoji took off, they were flying into the history books.
The aircraft reached the Oregon coast near the Cape Blanco lighthouse, and then turned inland and flew south before dropping their bombs over the Siskiyou national park near the town of Brookings. This fact will become important in Fujita’s story, and we’ll talk about that later in this video.
The small aircraft was noticed by several people, including Forest wardens who were based in the area to combat forest fires. Later that day, a wisp of smoke was detected by Fire warden Howard Gardner who was stationed in his lookout tower on Mount Emily. Proceeding to the area around Wheeler Ridge with his 18-year-old colleague Keith V. Johnson, the pair stumbled upon a blazing 60-foot wide crater. Thankfully the fire had not spread due to the wet ground from bad weather the previous day.
The flames, just like the Japanese plans, were dashed.
Eventually, the two Wardens would collect 65 pounds of bomb fragments, some of which had Japanese characters on them, confirming this was an organized attack against them and not some terrible case of friendly fire.
Meanwhile, Fujita had piloted his floatplane back towards I-25 and, though with some difficulty, found the craft by following an oil streak in the water. No sooner had the float plane been stored away, the submarine encountered and was attacked by American patrol planes and had to dive into the seabed to escape. Suffering only minor damage, another raid was launched three weeks later, reporting successful fires being started. American authorities have never credited this second attack as no evidence has yet been found of it.
With all bombs onboard the sub exhausted, I-25 set off for home.
The FBI quickly became involved with the incident, firstly ordering a radio blackout on any weather information that might aid a Japanese attack, then on the attacks themselves.
It was feared that the idea of random Japanese assaults on American soil would lead to mass panic. And that is why even today many people still believe that the United States was never attacked in her own backyard during WW2.
Aftermath and reconciliation
Fujita never forgot.
He was invited to Brookings, not too far from the site of his attack, in 1962.
At this time Fujita and the Japanese government still feared he might be tried as a war criminal. He was assured that he would not be. As a means of recompense for having put the community in danger, Fujita presented the City of Brookings with his family’s 400-year-old katana.
In fact, Fujita felt deeply ashamed of his actions during the war, and had carried the sword partly in case he had to use it to commit ritual seppuku. This he would have done if he were given a hostile reception. Thankfully the town received him in a spirit of reconciliation and this bred a deep and meaningful relationship between Fujita and the town of Brookings.
Fujita would visit the town four times in total, and even help build links between the local high school and Japan. He paid for several schoolchildren to visit their former enemy, despite being nearly bankrupt himself.
Notwithstanding animosity from some, a true bond was formed between the town and its former aggressor. He was made an honorary citizen of Brookings several days before his death. In October 1998, his daughter buried some of Fujita’s ashes at the bomb site where Fujita had himself planted a tree in 1998, a mark of peace and friendship.
