Posted on 12/13/2007 5:18:58 PM PST by Richard Poe
| by Richard Lawrence Poe Monday, December 10, 2007 |
Permanent Link Past Columns |
JAPANESE BOMBERS descended on Pearl Harbor 66 years ago, killing more than 2,400 Americans and demolishing our Pacific fleet. Every American knows the story. However, too few of us know that Japanese forces made additional attacks on U.S. soil after December 7, 1941. Pearl Harbor was merely the first. Our history books grow strangely tongue-tied on this subject. After 66 years, it is time to tell the full story.
Following his success at Pearl Harbor, Japanese Fleet Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto sought to press his advantage. He planned a two-pronged assault on America. His main force would invade Hawaii. A smaller force would create a diversion by attacking Alaska.
Alaska’s soft underbelly was the Aleutians, a chain of more than seventy islands stretching 1,100 miles to the southwest. The easternmost island, Attu, lies only 750 miles from Japan. After taking Attu, Yamamoto could island-hop his way to the Alaskan mainland.
For the attack on Alaska, Yamamoto sent his Fifth Fleet, including 2 light aircraft carriers, 13 destroyers, 5 cruisers, and 4 troop transports.
Two waves of Japanese bombers struck Dutch Harbor, Alaska on June 3 and 4, killing 33 U.S. servicemen and 10 civilians. After neutralizing this critical U.S. base on the island of Unalaska, Japanese troops siezed Attu and Kiska, and dug themselves in.
The attack on Hawaii did not fare as well. American cryptographers had cracked the Japanese naval code and knew Yamamoto's plans. They knew he planned to capture Midway island to use as a staging base for his move on Hawaii.
While Yamamoto's main force attacked Midway on June 4, the Americans lay ready for him. By the end of the day, they sank four Japanese aircraft carriers, crippling the Imperial Navy.
Japan's offensive ground to a halt. Now the Americans counterrattacked.
The Japanese proved strong on defense. In the Aleutians, U.S. ground troops got their first taste of Japan's warrior code, which favored death over defeat. Out of 2,650 Japanese troops defending Attu, only 28 lived to surrender. It took 14 months and 700 American lives to clear the invaders from the Aleutians.
Meanwhile, Japanese submarines prowled America's Pacific coast, sinking ships and even firing on land-bound targets.
On the night of February 23, 1942, for instance, the submarine I-17, under Commander Nishino Kozo, surfaced near the Bankline Company Oil Refinery in Goleta, California -- about 12 miles north of Santa Barbara -- and opened fire with the sub's deck gun, damaging an oil well.
Some Japanese submarines functioned as mini-aircraft carriers. They stored one or two light bombers in watertight hangars on deck, which they launched with explosive catapults. These Yokosuka E14Y floatplanes could carry two bombs or one torpedo. A 7.7-mm machine gun adorned the rear cockpit.
One such converted submarine, the I-25, terrorized America's west coast for four months in 1942.
Its skipper Meiji Tagami bombarded a naval base at Fort Stevens, Oregon on June 22, 1942, firing 5.5-inch shells from the I-25's deck gun.
Tagami's most daring feat was launching the first air strike on the U.S. mainland. Planners in Tokyo hoped to start forest fires with incendiary bombs, which would spread down the coast destroying cities.
A young pilot named Nobuo Fujita would lead the historic raid.
The I-25 surfaced off the Oregon coast on September 9, 1942. Captain Tagami told Fujita, "You're going to make history today, Nobuo. You're going to show them who really owns the Pacific -- the Empire of the Rising Sun!"
Fujita and his navigator-bombardier, Shoji Okuda, took off with two bombs and flew inland. "For miles there were nothing but great forests..." Fujita later wrote. He released the first bomb, watching it "explode with a brilliant white light..." The second burst like a "white blossom".
“We had done it!” Fujita wrote. “We had bombed America!”
Fujita dropped two more bombs on Oregon forests the night of September 29. Pressed by U.S. aircraft and bad weather, the I-25 aborted its mission and headed out to sea on October 5.
Before the war ended, the Japanese started much worse fires with unmanned balloon bombs set adrift over U.S. forests. Yet Fujita’s mission stands unique in the annals of warfare.
Militarily ineffective, it nonetheless captures our imagination, embodying all that we hated and admired in our Japanese adversaries: their bluster, their arrogance, their disquieting tenacity, their selfless valor.
Sixty-six years ago, two peoples met in war, finding in each other worthy foes. May our peoples prove as stout in friendship as we did in enmity.
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Richard Lawrence Poe is a contributing editor to Newsmax, an award-winning journalist and a New York Times bestselling author. His latest book is The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton and Sixties Radicals Siezed Control of the Democratic Party, co-written with David Horowitz. |
I might add that he told me all about it. I still know his name and the Japanese character for it but won’t divulge that here.
I always felt that they deserved honor, even though they fought against us. They put themselves in harms way for their country.
It’s probably wise for your colleague to keep his wartime tasks quiet. Even within the USA, Col. Tibbets wanted an unmarked secret grave lest protesters defile it.
I’ve learned a lot from this thread about the balloon attacks. It was a very clever idea, and I bet it did not cost all that much. Especially compared to the cost of preparing for an anthrax or plague attack, which the Japanese were not even considering!
Really? So finding Koga's Zero in flyable condition at that time in the war wasn't really a big deal in your opinion?
Read about it a little bit more before launching into blanket pronouncements. Why do you think the navy went to all the trouble of recovering the plane then racing it down from th Aleutians to North Island California and then hurrying to have it ready for flight in less than two weeks? It was considered one of the most important intelligence coups of the war, ranking with cracking the JN-25 naval codes.
Work on learning your history a bit more..
I’ll have to look that up, thanks! I’ll never view sunset at Carlsbad quite the same.
I have read that the Japanese left a huge sign, in English, over their command post: “It’s all yours, Yank”.
Very interesting...
U.S. Fighters Hunt the Enemy Off West Coast
SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 9 AP -- The army and navy were on the prowl today for an enemy aircraft carrier which authorities said sent at least two squadrons of planes in reconnaisance flights over industrial plants ringing San Francisco Bay -- without dropping a bomb.
The 30-odd planes ranged from San Jose at the south tip of the bay to the huge naval yard at Mare Island, the Fourth army interceptor command reported. The flight caused the first blackout in San Francisco's history. Two other blackouts followed in the darkness of early morning, but army authorities did not disclose whether enemy planes again approached.
Army interceptor planes followed the first of the enemy squadrons, but were unable to determine where they finally went. The navy then took up a search for a plane carrier, presuming lurking off California's coast, and possibly 500 or 600 miles at sea.
"I don't think there's any doubt the planes came from a carrier," said Lieut. General John L. Dewitt, commander of the Fourth Army and the western defense command.
San Francisco learned of the presence of enemy planes after hours of confused and conflicting reports given out during a sudden early evening air raid alarm -- first on the mainland -- and blackout lasting two and a half hours.
Afterward, while searchers still sought whereabouts of one group of 15 planes that flew southward from San Jose, 50 miles south of San Francisco, blackouts were placed in effect in almost every major west coast city.
Army sources said the enemy planes flew inland over the coast line west of San Jose about 6 p.m., PST, then the formation split into two squadrons of 15 planes.
One squadron flew southward and vanished.
The second squadron flew northward past the San Francisco Bay sities and up the bay to the vital Mare Island navy base, 25 miles from San Francisco.
My Grandfather told me a story about how he was at a Used car lot in Oakland California during the war, he had bought a Car and the Owner gave him the ignition keys, but there was no key for the trunk, My Grandfather was going to drive off, but the owner insisted on prying open the trunk because he wanted to see if there was anything of value in the trunk and didn’t want My grandfather to have anything of value if there was anything, they found a long box with a 2 foot long Rocket that was used for 4th of july fireworks, the car lot owner was holding the rocket with his hands and one hand held a short Cigar stub between his fingers, which set off the Fuse of this rocket...it proceeded to launch from his hands and flew across the street and exploded as it struck the huge front window of a Large Hotel...they quickly shut the trunk and both took off...My grandfather said the next day that the Oakland tribune printed a story that the Japaneese had attacked oakland!
I have always wondered if this realy happened?
I have wanted to look in the Archives of the tribune and see if there ever was a story of a rocket attack during that time in Oaklnd california.....
These soldiers could well have been panicky also.
Thanks RIchard
There have been several good books on the bombings and related topics. I wrote a book called “Bombs Over Brookings” about the Fujita bombings and the postwar visits of Fujita to Brookings. It is almost out of print, but your local library can borrow it from a library that holds it. For the balloon bombings, I’d recommend a book by Robert Mikesh which has a long title like “The Japanese balloon bomb attacks on North America during WWII”. For a more general account of attacks on the West Coast during WWII, I’d recommend “Silent Siege III” by Bert Webber. If you have any questions, please let me know.
There are multiple accounts of Japanese airplanes over various places in the US. However, US and Japanese documentation agree. The only Japanese plane to fly over the West Coast during WWII was the E14Y1 that flew over Curry County, Oregon in September of 1942 that dropped a total of four bombs. All other accounts of “Japanese” planes turned out to be misidentifications of US airplanes or (in the case of the great LA raid) a bird! Well, there is one other exception. The Zero that was found in the Aleutians in July of 1942 by the Army Air Force and returned to California where it was restored to flying condition, painted with a US Army paint scheme, then test flown. There were no other Japanese aircraft over the West Coast during WWII.
The “caginess” you refer to is almost certainly lack of knowledge. The attacks were, in general, insignificant. For example, 9000 balloon bombs were launched from Japan, but the result was 6 deaths. All of the other balloon bombs that reached the US were an annoyance only.
Interesting. A single plan launched from a destroyer or something like that?
I agree. You have to understand that we know where the Japanese were. We have most of their records and we interviewed many of the people involved in the Pearl Harbor attack. There was no attack by airplanes on the West Coast at that time. The only attacks by a Japanese airplane was by Nobuo Fujita on September 9, 1942 and September 29, 1942 in Curry County, Oregon.
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