After it burst with a brilliant white light, both Fujita and Okuda observed a scattering of flickering fires through the trees. A few weeks later, on August 15, Emperor Hirohito broadcast his order for all Japanese forces to lay down their arms. Captain Tagami canceled the third mission, having decided to spend the rest of his patrol time in attacks on shipping. The relative isolation of America, plus the defensive strengths of its Air Force and Navy, have supposedly eliminated such a threat. Like the U.S. strike against Japan by Jimmy Doolittle’s raiders in April 1942, the attack was to be psychological warfare.Fujita and the I-25 left Japan on August 15, 1942, bound for Oregon. Once a blaze gets started in the deep woods, it is difficult to stop. As the 20th anniversary of his raid neared, he received an invitation from the Jaycees of Brookings, Oregon, to attend the city’s Azalea Festival.
Most Americans probably believe that continental United States has never been bombed. The raids were not repeated, because aircraft-carrying submarines gradually disappeared into the increasing category of obsolete weapons. The I-25 did not send Fujita on the attack again, though it torpedoed and sank two tankers off the Oregon coast before returning home. Just in front of the conning tower was a watertight hangar that housed the parts to a Yokosuka E14Y1, a two-seat single-engine floatplane. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 5,000 articles originally published in our various magazines. It was powered by a 9-cylinder, 340-hp Haitachi Tempu 12 radial engine that provided a maximum speed of about 150 mph, and a normal cruising speed of 85 mph.
About noon that day, Gardner spotted a wisp of smoke to the southeast, and at 12:24 p.m. he radioed his headquarters at Gold Beach, which ordered him to proceed to the suspected fire. Dozens of towns erected permanent billboards that carried the names of citizens killed in defense of their country. At 6:24 a.m., Gardner reported the unidentified aircraft by radio to the Gold Beach ranger headquarters station 35 miles north of Brookings. With a wingspan of 36 feet, the Glen could remain airborne nearly five hours, giving it approximately a 200-mile operating radius. “It was so huge, so wonderfully gorgeous. The only fatalities were an adult and five children who, while on a church picnic in the south-central Oregon forests, stumbled upon a downed balloon and its unexploded bomb.Fujita’s dauntless attacks may have inspired another Japanese attack plan. These were delivered that night to the U.S. Army detachment at Brookings, where Army officers and an FBI agent eagerly awaited them for examination. After the war, Fujita opened a successful metal products sales business in Japan. The Army had previously been alerted to a possible bombing attack when a soldier coming off duty at an observation post on September 9 reported seeing an unidentified plane come in from seaward at 6 a.m. and heard one going out to sea about 6:30 a.m. Fujita’s floatplane-equipped submarine had been stationed off Pearl Harbor during the surprise attack on December 7, 1941, but he was frustrated by his inability to survey battle conditions there because of damage to his aircraft.
The E14Y crossed the foggy Oregon coastline near the town of Brookings, not far from the California border. By the time of Pearl Harbor, 11 of its submarines were equipped to carry, launch, and recover one specially configured floatplane. Though this did little damage—one shell knocked out electricity, another destroyed a baseball field backstop—it served as a prequel for Fujita’s bombing run.The I-25 arrived off the Oregon coast in early September. Both Fujita and Okuda said the magnesium pellets ignited like fireworks. The Japanese leaders were inspired by a 1936 forest fire that had devastated the town of Bandon and the surrounding area on the southern Oregon coast. Together they collected more than 65 pounds of bomb fragments, now identified by markings on the casing as Japanese. Weighing just 3,500 pounds, the plane had a wood and metal frame, with fabric covering the wings and tail. It might even cause large-scale panic, once residents knew Japan could reach out and bomb their families and homes from 5,000 miles away. The Japanese submarine I-25, commanded by Meiji Tagami, had been assigned to sink enemy shipping and attack the enemy on land with its 14 cm deck gun.
Inspired by the Japanese success at Pearl Harbor, he thought submarines could move in close to the Southern California coast, then launch the Geta against the Douglas and Lockheed aircraft factories and other key targets that lay just a few miles inland. The Japanese are retaliating for the U.S. bombing of Japan the prior April. But Nobuo Fujita, who flew the floatplane assigned to the B1 submarine I-25, saw how it could be used to threaten the United States.
Later in 1942 Japan’s navy began developing submersible aircraft carriers for offensive operations: the I-400 class Sen-Toku (for sensuikan toku, special submarine). It was on a routine patrol out of McChord Field near Tacoma, Washington, when it came upon the I-25 and attacked, dropping two 300-pound bombs. His sword was displayed in the town’s library, and he funded a program to add books about foreign cultures to its collection.