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Bombing of the U.S. mainland

September 9, 1942: World War II was well underway as a result of Japan bombing Pearl Harbor only 10 months earlier. Everyone in the United States feared that Japan would sooner or later attack somewhere along the west coast of the continental U.S.

Although their expectations were highly exaggerated, it turned out that they were right.

The Brookings fire lookout tower

The Brookings, Oregon fire lookout tower

Early on the morning of September 9, 1942, Keith V. Johnson, a forestry student, was on duty atop a forest fire lookout tower between Gold’s Beach and Brookings, Oregon (shown here on the feedback map for those who dowsed the target's location).

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Feedback map

Keith, like many west coast residents, had memorized the silhouettes of Japanese long distance bombers and those of our own aircraft. He felt confident that he could spot and identify any plane as friend or foe almost immediately.

It was cold, foggy and wet on the coast this September morning. The residents of the area were still in bed or preparing to head for work.

Johnson was sweeping the horizon but could see nothing. He went back to his duties as a forestry agent which was searching for any signs of a forest fire. The forest was extremely wet, so there was little chance of a forest fire starting, so the morning dragged slowly on.

He was about to put his binoculars down when something flashed in the morning sunlight just above the fog bank. He could see that it was a plane, but it was unusual because all air traffic in that area flew north and south along the coast, and this flash turned out to be a plane flying directly towards him, from the open ocean.

He watched in awe as a small floatplane with the Japanese "red meat ball" (The "rising sun") insignia flew over his lookout tower.

A red meatball plane

The "red meatball" (The "rising sun" insignia)

He could see that the plane had two bombs under its wings and knew that they would be dropped. The plane was not a bomber and there was no way that such a small plane could have flown across the Pacific, so Johnson surmised that there must be a mighty Japanese fleet of aircraft carriers approaching the coastline. He knew that he needed to report the incident as quickly as possible. He grabbed his communications radio and called the Forest Fire Headquarters informing them of what he was watching unfold. In his mind, and the minds of those whom he notified, the great attack on the continental U.S. had begun.

In a way, they were right.

A Japanese plane leaves an aircraft submarine

A Japanese plane leaves an aircraft-carrier submarine

What had happened was that the Japanese had plans to bomb the western mouth of the Panama Canal, but first, wanted to test their ability to do so. So, they put a small plane onto one of their aircraft-carrier submarines and sailed it to the nearest part of the U.S. - the Oregon coast. Wanting this test to be as discrete as possible, they didn't want to bomb any populated locations. They only wanted to drop a couple of bombs into the forest and start a forest fire as a test of their capabilities. The plane took off from the submarine, dropped its bombs into the forest, circled once to make sure it had been successful, and then flew back to land in the ocean, be hoisted back aboard the sub, and return to Japan.

Although the "attack" was successful, the damage done to the forest was not. It could have been, if the Japanese Navy had checked the weather first. The morning was, like I said, cold, foggy and wet. The woods into which the bombs were dropped were far too wet to catch fire, so after the bombs' fuel stopped burning, the intended forest fire just fizzled out in the water-soaked woods.

The attack memorial

Fifty years later, the pilot who flew the plane came to the U.S. to help the people of Brookings, Oregon dedicate a memorial to the event. The memorial stands today in the same wooded area outside Brookings, Oregon, in rembrance of that fateful day in World War II when the Japanese staged the great attack on the continental U.S.

Addendum: During the following few years, the Japanese attached small bombs to helium filled balloons which drifted on air currents across the ocean and came to the west coast. Only one of the balloon-bombs ever hurt anyone, and that was when one of them landed near a group of picnicking children, and the children picked it up as it went off.



If you got impressions for which this feedback is insufficient, please take a look at the following web sites for more:

Aircraft Market Place
KilroyWasHere.org
Yahoo Voices
History.net.com
Out West Newspaper
Answers.com