Did Japan Attack the Continental US - Fact or Fantasy?

The Japanese

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on Pearl Harbor Hawaii on December 7, 1941 involved not only Japanese aircraft but also submarines. Nine large fleet submarines were operating around the Hawaiian Islands during the air

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, including the launch of two manned submarines that penetrated PE Harbor defenses a few hours before the Carrier air strikes began following the success of Po Harbor. . The Japanese naval command ordered the large submarines to head for the west coast of the US. The Japanese knew that the American public and military were nervous and uneasy following the attack. Japanese submarines hunted near the coast off California and Oregon.

The coasts would further undermine American morale. The fear of some sort of Japanese landing on the West Coast was also widely believed by Americans at the time, before we get into that a quick word from our sponsor Call of War World War II is a free online strategy game. Bringing together millions of players around the world, you battle up to 100 other players in real time in games that can take weeks to complete. The games feature historically accurate World War II units and maps that allow you to create your own path and rewrite history. War II is completely cross-platform.

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All had launched deck gun attacks and torpedoes against American coastal merchant ships with little success, they sank two American tankers and damaged six more, all within sight of land, causing consternation out of proportion to their successes, but curiously none of the Japanese had carried out bombing raids on the coast. As ordered at the end of the year, the submarines returned to Japanese bases to refuel and rearm and some were sent on further missions to Australia and New Zealand, but a handful returned to the California coast. One of these ships, the i7, decided to carry the original orders in the second part and bombard the American coast even though the Chief of Staff of the Japanese Navy, Admiral Nagano, canceled the order he had given to the submarines because he feared retaliatory attacks against Japanese installations and cities, but it appears that Lieutenant Commander Nisho in the i7 appears to have ignored his orders and proceeded with the original instructions to attack the coast.

The question is why the story of Nishino's attack on the Barnes oil company's Elwood refinery, located 10 miles north of Santa Barbara, California, seems rooted simply in a desire for personal revenge. In the late 1930s, Commander Nishino was a merchant seaman, captain of a Japanese tanker that had arrived at the Elwood Refinery's mile-long Derek Line to unload. Oil company executives invited Nisho and his crew to a welcome ceremony north of the beach while Nisho and his men made their way down a path from the beach. The proud Japanese sea captain had slipped and landed on a prickly cactus.

The American oil workers couldn't control themselves at the sight of Captain Nisho having cactus spines pulled out of his butt and Nishino's humiliation. and the loss of prestige was total, we must also remember that in February 1942 Japan was at the highest point of its conquests. British Malaya had fallen and the large Singapore Naval Base had surrendered to the Japanese on February 15 and 100,000 British, Australian and Indian troops had fallen into Japanese hands in Burma the British were in retreat carrying out a combative retreat to across a thousand miles of hills and jungles the 17th Indian Division was in February in grave danger of being cut off at the Satang River the British exit to the relative safety of India the war was also going badly for the United States the general's forces Douglas MacArthur were bottled up on the Batan Peninsula on the island of Luzon in the Philippines and Matha himself had just been ordered to abandon his command of Doom by none other than President Franklin Roosevelt himself and fled ignominiously to Australia the American island of Wake had been in Japanese hands for 2 months the Japanese were prepared to launch an invasion of Java in the Dutch East Indies one of the last frontiers of Allied resistance in the south before Australia perhaps personal reasons led Nishino to ignore Admiral Nagano's orders and bombard the American coast and perhaps his decision was made at a time of national euphoria when the expanding Japanese empire seemed unstoppable.

They had a term to describe it, it was called Victory Sickness in February 1942. Nishino had returned to the area of ​​his humiliation several years earlier, but this time in command of a powerful and well-armed submarine on the afternoon of February 23, As the light faded from the sky, the Japanese submarine Ed was surfacing toward the giant refinery, its dozens of Dereks leading the way. Huge aviation fuel storage tanks situated on a hill behind Nisho Beach stood on the Command Tower Bridge scanning the deck with binoculars the place he perhaps hated more than any other. The gunners had already loaded their gun with a 140 mm shell at exactly 7:15 p.m.

Nisho ordered the gunners to start firing. The gun's first shots, echoing across about a mile of sea separating the submarine from land, brought local residents and oil workers to their windows. Many workers ran out of a popular bar where they were. relaxing after a hard day of Labor confusion it rained after the first shell hit as people tried to locate the source of the explosion as the deck gun sounded for a second time. The oil workers saw the Japanese submarine sitting on the surface in the opposite sea. Refinery worker Brown later commented that it was so big I thought it might be a destroyer or a cruiser.

Within minutes, local police were informed of an enemy submarine sitting boldly on the surface firing at the oil refinery. The local sheriff assured callers that American planes were en route to engage the Intruder, however, American authorities were unable to do much about it. The

fact

was not lost on Commander Nishino. The I17 fired between 16 and 24 rounds. Accounts vary. There were 11 that fell into the sea, while at least three hit and damaged the pumping equipment in an oil header, other projectiles passed over the refinery to land on ranches up to 3 m from the coast. Nisho was certainly about to start a major setup when a shell exploded alone in a field. 30 meters from one of the gigantic aviation storage tanks, Misho suddenly abruptly ordered the gunners to stop firing at 7:35 p.m. and the i7 departed the scene on the surface moving along the Santa Barbara Channel toward the open sea at the small town of Montesito, 16 miles east of Elwood, Reverend Arthur Basher noticed the submarine heading toward the south, toward Los Angeles, and flashing lights as if trying to signal the coast, the submarine was reported to still be sailing on the surface at 8:30 p.m. by local residents and Basham's report to local police fueled suspicions that Japanese Americans had been in communication with Nishino's ship and helped locate its targets.

Reports of flashing lights in the sea off Santa Barbara led to the imposition of a blackout until shortly after midnight, as directed by local authorities. There were fears of new bombings against coastal communities. Nishino's attack, while perhaps only serving as one man's desire for revenge, cannot be completely dismissed as a strange event. The massive Elwood oil refinery was a major military and economic target and Nishino managed to set fire to the stored aviation fuel. there he would have obtained an important victory. Commander Nisho made history by becoming the first person to successfully attack the

continental

United States since the War of 1812, but by far more important was the fear and panic that Nishino's bold plans caused among throughout the American West.

On the coast, many believe that the United States was about to be invaded so soon after the successful Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor just 3 months before what occurred in Los Angeles, just days after the attack on the Elwood refinery, demonstrated to everyone that fears of invasion were widespread and all that was needed was a spark to ignite the entire coastal region after I17's successful bombing of the Elwood oil refinery on February 23. American forces defending the West Coast were placed on high alert, another scenario besides the invasion facing the US authorities was a Japanese air raid on one or more of the large metropolises on the West Coast, such as Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego, it was not beyond the possibility that a Japanese carrier force could repeat the type of massive air attack witnessed at PE Harbor. this time attempting to disrupt civilian life rather than destroy a military objective, not forgetting that all of these cities had a sizable US Navy presence.

The Nishino attack further undermined relations between white Americans and the Japanese. , which had already been seriously eroded after the attack on the port of La anti. -aircraft guns and search lights were ready to engage the Japanese, a warning system was operational with 10,000 anti-aircraft guards ready to hit the streets, and army radar units were carefully monitoring their green sights to detect a Japanese presence in the skies over the city. from Los Angeles at 2:25 a.m. m. On February 25, while most Los Angeles residents were fast asleep in their beds, an eerie sound grew throughout the city announcing imminent danger, hundreds of air raid sirens wailing in the still night air caused by the spark needed to ignite.

The touch paper of fear of invasion, a radar contact recorded shortly before 2: a. m., the signal on the radar screen was forcibly identified at 20:7 a.m. m. as an unidentified aircraft approaching shore officers at the Fourth Interceptor command tasked with defending Los Angeles from an immediately publicized air attack. A yellow alert for 15 minutes was tracked to the unknown contact still approaching Los Angeles and as the plane did not deviate from its course, the alert status was updated to Blue. A blue alert indicated to police and military civil defense authorities that the plane was presumed to be hostile.

Just 3 minutes later the order was given to go to Red Alert status, as far as the authorities were now concerned, an enemy air attack was imminent throughout the city, the gloomy sound of air raid sirens continued to wake up the residents. The night sky over the city was darkened and the anti-aircraft batteries were reported manned and ready for the Fourth Interceptor command headquarters. Thousands of air raid guards and police officers took to the streets to help the military. 232 All anti-aircraft batteries and search light units had completed the status report. The anti-aircraft weapons employed by the 4th Interceptor Command were 37 mm cannons and larger 3-inch cannons.

The combined number of cannons within the could be placed 48 Shells flared into the sky every minute creating a dangerous curtain of fire for any wood. The bombers penetrated at 3:16 a.m. All the anti-aircraft guns suddenly started firing hundreds of shells that exploded like crazy fireworks high above the city, so the guns stopped firing. 336 The searchlights continued to trace bright patterns in the sky when suddenly at 405 The flat guns fired again at 4:15. Silence once again returned to the city as the batteries stopped blindly hitting the empty sky. 30 minutes of sustained anti-aircraft fire had sustained approximately 1,440 rounds of 37mm 3-inch ammunition in the air.

TheAngeles, equivalent to a whopping 10 tons of ammunition, most of the shells had exploded at their preset altitudes, some had not done so at all. 10 tons of spent shrapnel and unexploded shells now rained down on the city beneath some of the largest 3-inch shells there were. Homes and garages were damaged as fragments of red-hot shrapnel tore through houses, often avoiding the Terrified residents as the sun rose later that morning. Army bomb disposal teams were working everywhere. the city cordoning off the streets from curious passersby before removing the 3-inch American shells that had buried themselves in unexploded streets and yards to safety.

Incredibly only nine citizens of Los Angeles had died during the airstrike, most of them from heart attacks or accidents in the blackout in the North The American Aviation Factory complex located in Englewood new B25 Mitchell bombers were discovered with their wings peppered by falling shrapnel. issued Executive Order 9066, this law required the forced burial of all Japanese Americans for the duration of the conflict in, quote, concentration camps outside the city during the night of the air raid, the police, who believe they had been signaling enemy aircraft with arbitrarily arrested lights. dozens of Japanese Americans, most of these people were only guilty of driving a card, being blacked out, or other minor violations of the law.

The questions began almost as soon as the last shell exploded when the Japanese attacked Los Angeles on February 25, 1942. The answer is. a resounding no, journalists came up with a ridiculous figure of 50 enemy planes over the city during the airstrike, the US military provided some face-saving evidence to prove that an attack had indeed occurred, for example, the 122 Coast Artillery Regiment The

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ory guarding a plane at Downey identified several planes flying beyond the maximum range of their guns, but fired at the Long Beach battery anyway. The g78 coastal artillery regiment protecting the Douglas aircraft. The factory recorded between 25 and 30 enemy bombers, followed half an hour later by another 15.

Flying in formation, this battery fired 246 3-inch shells into the sky, claiming that the mystery bombers then moved to sea officially, at least the Japanese launched an attack on La according to the US Army after receiving several reports from anti-aircraft batteries that the Army decided on a tentative estimate of 15 enemy aircraft over the city between 2:30 and 4:30 a.m. This is an obvious question. 15 aircraft could only have come from a Japanese aircraft carrier and a detailed search conducted the next day failed to demonstrate a Japanese naval presence. in coastal submarines of West Coast Waters not included in light of this news the authorities changed their version stating that the 15 reported aircraft were most likely of civilian origin and had been conveniently piloted by enemy agents on February 26 Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox completely undermined the Army's statements when he declared that the airstrike in La had been a false alarm.

The US Army continued to defend its original claim for some time and eventually required Congressional intervention, perhaps unwilling to accept the embarrassment of having been shooting Phantoms instead. Japanese bombers on the night of February 25, no evidence has ever been presented to show that the Japanese attacked the city. No bomb damage was reported anywhere in the city. No aircraft were shot down by anti-aircraft fire. the Japanese pilot attack or enemy agent, so what were the gunners actually shooting at false radar returns? It was a possibility that weather balloons were another, some had been launched nearby and an air raid warden even described a balloon that was hit and burst. flames Another suggestion has been a large alien spaceship the UFO story originated with a manipulated photo of something caught in beams of search light over The that night if it were aliens we should praise their patience in not vaporizing the earth after a welcome so welcome The Japanese submarines were However, it is very real and all Americans living in California and Oregon knew that the enemy was near.

What the Phantom LA air raid perhaps demonstrated above all was the fears of invasion and attack that Americans were living with in early 1942 and the competence of civil defense and anti-aircraft units whose job it was to protect the city did their job. night of February 25 and were ready to protect the city from any future Japanese attack. Commander Nishino and i7 remain in their assigned patrol area after the attack on the Elwood Oil Refinery on February 28, five days after the shore bombing and three days after the Japanese Phantom air raid on La Nisho, they attacked new. The lookouts located the tanker William a Berg and the boys fired a single torpedo at the American ship, which fortunately for the merchant Sean, the Japanese torpedo detonated prematurely, but Nisho believed it had hit the tanker.

The William a Berg escaped damaged and left the scene of its close encounter with the disaster. The invasion scare was over for the moment, but the Japanese would return to the West. Coast in the summer of 1942 to Shell Shore targets and even launch an air assault on May 11, 1942 two long-range Japanese submarines, I25 and i26, departed Japan for the west coast of North America. In the first part of this series we saw how the Japanese submarine i7 had launched a daring deck gun bombardment against the Elwood oil refinery in California on February 23, 1942 and helped trigger the infamous Los Angeles 2 air raid days after.

Now two more Japanese submarines were coming to directly attack the North American continent. The I25 was equipped with an onboard reconnaissance aircraft, the Osa e14 y1 flying boat, codenamed The Glenn by the Allies, carried with its wings folded inside a waterproof mount in front of the conning tower and launched by a deck-mounted catapult. The plane was recovered by landing in the sea next to the submarine and being dragged on board by a crane, the I 26 hangar was empty. They initially played a role in the Japanese attack on Midway, specifically the diversionary attack on the Dutch port of Alaska, designed to draw American aircraft carriers and other warships away from Midway in the On 27 May, the i25s flying boat piloted by the Petty Officer Nobuo Fueta successfully conducted a reconnaissance flight over Kodiak Island and detected an American cruiser and two destroyers.

After the successful recovery of Fueta, I 26's hangar had been kept empty in case I25 had been unable to recover the seaplane, I25 sailed up the west coast of America and arrived off the Oregon coast on the 14th. June, while off the Oregon coast I25 launched a series of fake underwater periscopes constructed of painted bamboo that were mounted on special mounts. submerged rafts designed to confuse local American anti-submarine forces conducting regular patrols along the coast on 18 June. Leftist Major Tagami, commander of I25, received new instructions from Rear Admiral Yamazaki ordering him to attack American military targets along the west coast.

Bombarding them with her deck gun, i26 received the same instructions at the same time and attacked the Vano Lighthouse in Canada on the afternoon of 20 June. Vancouver Island is part of the huge Canadian province of British Columbia located in In the Pacific Northwest, the coast is dotted with numerous lighthouses that have guided local fishing fleets for generations, as well as transpacific telegraph stations vital to the international communications of the late 19th and mid-20th centuries. Estan Point Lighthouse was built in 1909 and is one of the oldest. Euro-Canadian structures in the region were located in 1942 near a local Indian settlement.

It was a relatively remote area little affected by the Pacific War, but all of it was rudely destroyed late in the afternoon of June 20, 1942 by the Japanese submarine i26 Commander Minur. Yokota brought his boat to the surface approximately 2 miles offshore directly in front of the lighthouse and ordered his gunners to pump shells into the building in hopes of bringing down the structure. Yota's bombing of the lighthouse at Estan Point has been the subject of historical scrutiny in Canada and the attack on the lighthouse. has become a controversial issue according to the Canadian government the i26 fired between 20 and 30 140mm rounds from its deck gun at the lighthouse but caused almost no damage before leaving the area after an hour sitting on the surface at high sea, there are those who doubt whether the attack was the work of the Japanese and these conspiracy theorists have suggested that the projectiles actually originated from an American ship or submarine and intentionally did not cause any material damage.

The harmless attack was carried out according to the revisionists in an effort to bolster the Canadian Prime Minister. McKenzie King's Liberal government, which found itself in the middle of a controversial move to implement conscription in Canada, historians writing in Canada's leading history magazine, The Beaver, suggest citing the timing of the submarine attack it seems a phenomenal stroke of luck for King, the Liberal Party and possibly even the continuation of the Unity of Canada or was the timing too perfect in quotes the authors note that the debate over the controversial conscription bill was at the time in in full swing in Parliament in Ottawa cite perhaps a discreet enemy incident of the fabricated kind was just what was needed to galvanize Canadian public opinion toward the kind of all-out effort necessary to justify, quote, unquote, overseas conscription.

According to post-war statements made by Commander Yokota Skipper of the i26, his chief gunner aimed at the lighthouse at a distance of 2 thousand and began firing at 10:15. p.m. On June 20, although approximately 20 to 30 shells were fired at a very prominent and high target, not a single shell hit either the lighthouse or the nearby Indian settlement. This incredibly poor artillery has provided conspiracy theorists with evidence that an American instead fired and deliberately missed human habitation and the important navigation beacon while posing as an enemy. Intruder Commander Yokota explained that his gunners' terrible aim was due to the fact that our weapons team was having difficulty making the shots effective.

He wrote to challenging revisionist historians. the mere presence of the i26 indicates that even at the time of the attack at 10:15 p.m. On a late June afternoon at such a latitude there would still be enough light to read a newspaper. They also suggest that Yokota was summoned to Honor Bound to corroborate any official statements made by the newly established authorities. The victorious allies. Without quotes, there are certainly some inconsistencies that have occurred. allowed doubts about the veracity of the attack to creep into the frame lighthouse keeper Robert L. made note in his diary during the attack of two warships firing at Estan Point from two different directions in all subsequent government reports the warships were reduced to a submarine one, the official report presented by the senior Canadian naval officer in the Pacific to the government in Ottawa in July 1942 stated that the bombardment was carried out in all probability by a submarine mounting 5.5 guns in front of the submarine command tower.

Submarines such as the i26 were equipped with a single 140 mm or 5.5 inch gun mounted behind the conning tower. The American submarines, on the other hand, perfectly match the Canadian officer's description of the offending vessel and the American Boats were the only other submarines operating in that region in That time, on July 3, 1973, a 140-pound shell was discovered. mm from the Japanese Navy unexploded near this point. This compelling physical evidence of the Japanese attack goes some way to disproving some kind of elaborate fraud the United States was conducting against the Canadians to solidify Kaz's resolve regarding a full commitment to the war in Europe, the debate over the Japanese attack Estan Point may continue for many years and the truth remains elusive.

Yokota went to his grave convinced that he had indeed bombed Canadian soil and had accomplished the mission. He had been assigned the same night that the I2 6 are point the torpedo I25 the British cargo ship to C 70 Mi south southeast of Cape Flattery the sinkingIt was not easy as a distress call brought two Royal Canadian Navy Corvettes to the scene. The I25 slipped away but then appeared at the mouth of the Colombia River. Japanese naval intelligence had informed I25's captain that there was a US Navy submarine base located in the port of Atoria, near the mouth of the river, but that it was between I25 and its destination.

The objective was the enormous Fort Stevens. Work had begun on the construction of Fort Stevens in 1863, in the midst of the American Civil War. Something had to be done to protect the entrance to Colombia and the result was the construction of three forts called Stevens Colombia and Canby, although not. However, to see any action during the Civil War, Fort Stevens provided a formidable obstacle to any Seaborn Raider attempting to penetrate the Columbia River. Time passed and the weapons in the three forts were progressively improved and modernized. The defenses were never truly tested until Commander Tagami and the interview with I25 Hove on the night of June 21, 1942.

Fort Stevens was equipped with many types and calibers of artillery, all of them from the beginning of the century, there were 6 and 8-inch and 12-inch mortars, one of the newest weapons. Mounted on the fort were 10-inch rifles, a particularly impressive weapon. Each time the weapon was fired, the barrel recoiled rearward to an automatic locking point, meaning the weapon disappeared within its imbrasia, allowing the crew to reload the rifle out of sight. Not surprisingly, the enemy nicknamed this weapon The Vanishing Rifle. Fort Stevens contained enough firepower to withstand a Japanese fleet, much less a small submarine armed with nothing more impressive than a 140mm deck gun guarding the mouth of the Colombia.

Controlled mines anchored below the water surface at selected depths. A total of 56 mines were arranged in 12 groups of 13 each group connected to a control room in the fort by cables. A final deterrent to a potential enemy was the search lights mounted on the fort each. The search light was enormously powerful, capable of illuminating a ship to a maximum range of 6 to 8 miles, doubly important for the Fort because it lacks radar. Sunday, June 21, was the longest day of the year and the air was warm as the I25 moved slowly and fishing boats discreetly followed headed towards the approaches to the Colombia River.

In the darkness, countless lights flickered and shone from the shore, indicating the Japanese officers in the command tower to the city of Atoria or Seaside. The wind was just four knots, which meant that the sea was calm and, therefore, the officer of the watch Senuk, the ship's chief gunner, should not have encountered excessive difficulties, he was right on target, in fact , on the cover. Ta was supervising his gunners as they prepared the gun for action, the barrel pointed upwards, between 30 and 40° already to begin firing shells towards the American coast as the I25 sailed silently through the entrance to the Columbia River, Approximately 20,000 yards from shore, the troops manning the batteries awaited another silent and uneventful one.

The guard commander, Tagami, gave the order to begin firing as the first Japanese shells began to explode around Fort Stevens, all hell soon broke loose, the night air already rent by the whistling and loud bangs of the guns. Incoming Japanese shells were further disturbed by the siren's gloomy whale as troops hurried to take up positions and prepare to return fire. However, he was destined not to fire a single shot in response to the former i25 attack, the senior duty officer of the Fire Group control station tasked with ordering the batteries to fire on Captain Robert Houston refused to give the order.

As far as Houston knew, there were three problems that prevented him from unleashing the fort's considerable firepower against the Japanese intruder, first, from the distant flash of the Japanese. Houston estimated that the enemy ship was approximately 20,000 yards from the fort, although the 10-inch rifles mounted on the fort were much more powerful weapons than the weak Japanese cannon. The antiquated nature of the fort's weaponry meant that the rifles could only fire a maximum of 16,200 yards, secondly, the enemy ship appeared to be moving and firing and Houston lacked a radar with which to precisely control the drop of fire toward the fort. target, assuming the enemy ship was within range, Thirdly, and perhaps rather ignominiously, Houston believed that if he ordered the batteries to open fire, the Japanese would easily identify the flashes of the large 10-inch rifles and begin a form of counterattack against the fort's main armament, since the rifles were out of range, the Japanese gunners could have hit the American gunners with impunity.

Meanwhile, the confused American gunners stood by their weapons wondering when on Earth their officers would give the order to open fire. Morale began to plummet among ordinary Americans, so soldiers as Japanese shells continue to impact around the fort, the lack of an American response to the Japanese. The shells were of no use to the i25's gunners, although there were lights on the ground, the Japanese had little idea what they were actually shooting at and simply dropped shells in the general direction of Fort Stevens, the I25 fired 17 shells causing only superficial damage. on land before quietly abandoning the and heads to yosa in Japan, how, however, the Japanese had not yet finished with the west coast of the United States, the chief petty officer pilot of the i25, fueta, has presented a plan to launch a daring air attack against the west coast of the United States.

Chief Petty Officer Feta approached Imperial Headquarters in Tokyo with an interesting plan he used the small Twan yosa e14 y1 flying boat carried aboard some Japanese submarines to launch air attacks against American targets, the plan was approved and Fueta decided not to attack a American city, the capacity of the e14 Y bomb was very small. and any damage it inflicted would be negligible, Fueta instead recognized that the vast forests of the Pacific Northwest were highly vulnerable to fires that, if large enough, would damage the U.S. timber industry, threaten settlements and American lives, the mission was given the green light and the submarine I25 was assigned to carry it out on the surface west of the California and Oregon border around 6 a.m. on September 9, 1942.

Fueta took off with his observer in his yakusa seaplane carrying two 77 kg incendiary bombs under the wings and flew inland dropping one on Mount Emily in Oregon and a second at an unknown location a small fire started on Wheelo Ridge on Mount Emily about 10 miles east of the town of Brookings in Oregon, but was extinguished by Forest Service personnel. The Japanese aircraft was briefly heard or glimpsed by several watchtowers in the Cisu National Forest and was the first and was the first penetration of US

continental

airspace by an actual enemy aircraft in World War II. Fragments of the Mount Emily bomb were given to the US military for analysis and confirmation of origin. the attack was Japanese after Fuji's plane was recovered from the sea by the I25 the submarine was attacked by a pair of American planes which escaped although they suffered some minor damage 3 weeks later, on September 29, 1942, Vegeta again attempted to use the Cape Lano light like a navigation beacon that flew 90 minutes east dropped its incendiaries and returned safely to the submarine Fueta said he saw flames on the ground but Forest Service personnel reported no fires the rain-saturated forests were hard to burn thwarting Fu Jeta's efforts so ending Japanese airstrikes on the continental US The attacks I have covered so far in this film are contained in my book The Fueta Plan published in 2006 at the time I and the rest of us missed an attack on an American icon the Japanese attack on the Golden Gate Bridge I first came across this story in a newspaper archive from 1946.

In June 1946, the people of San Francisco read in the newspaper that had found a live Japanese torpedo from World War II half buried in a sandbar on a beach near the Golden Gate Bridge. At the time, and even today, it was a complete mystery how it got there, but I think I can answer that question based on my previous research on Japanese submarines off the west coast between 1941 and 1942. The torpedo appears to be physical evidence from a previous attack. unrecorded Japanese attack on an American city a bold attempt to destroy a landmark that evidently became a toy on June 5, 1946 a man walking along Marshall Beach near the Golden Gate Bridge saw something in the waves and recognized it as a torpedo.

He called the police. who in turn alerted the US Navy that the torpedo was partially buried in a sandbar it was soon identified as a World War II Japanese long spear torpedo one of the greatest weapons of the war the spear Long Type 93 entered service aboard Imperial Japanese Navy submarines Cruisers and Destroyers in 1933, the Japanese called it the oxygen torpedo due to its propulsion system which used highly compressed oxygen as a fuel oxidizer in the fuel system. weapon propulsion. The Type 93 had a range of 44,000 yards or 40 km moving at 38 knots or 70 km per hour. In June 1946, the 29 ft F long or 9 M long torpedo weighed £6,000 or 2.7 tons with an explosive warhead of 1,080 or 490 kilos.

Enen re McBride and a US Navy demolition squad arrived at Marshall's Beach to deal with the long spear as an precaution, all land and water traffic under and over the Golden Gate Bridge was stopped. Tampering with the weapon took place the following day in difficult conditions in the surf, the Torpedoes warhead was still alive and McBride estimated that the weapon had been embedded in the sandbar for at least 2 or 3 years and perhaps longer, The sailors cut off the warhead of the torpedo and pulled it out of the surf. The main body of the long spear was also attached to the beach using ropes and pulleys.

A demolition charge was attached to the warhead and detonated. Although the explosion was quite weak as the warhead was heavily corroded after sitting in the ocean for years, it is believed that the Navy took the rest of the torpedo and disposed of it, so who fired the torpedo and when is not addressed. in 1946 and So far, my research has not identified which Japanese submarine was responsible and the date the attack took place on December 10, 1941. 3 days after the surprise Japanese air and submarine attacks on the port of PE, A Japanese submarine reported that the aircraft carrier USS Lexington and two cruisers were heading north of Feast from Hawaii.

The Japanese failure to destroy the American aircraft carriers at Pole Harbor had been a very serious mistake and the Imperial Japanese Navy was determined to locate and synchronize them as soon as possible. Vice Admiral Shinjuku ordered all available Japanese submarines to locate and synchronize the Lexington. The large fleet submarines I15 9 17 19 21 23 and 25 departed at flank speed on December 14. They had not been able to find the Lexington. The submarines joined them. the I 10 and the i26 and the Japanese Nine ships were ordered to go to the west coast of the US and sink merchant ships near the coast.

These vessels approach Los Angeles, Seattle, the mouth of the Columbia River, Cape Blano in Oregon, Cape Mesino, Monterey Bay and Estero Bay in California and San Diego, but. the one we were interested in was I-15 in a San Francisco patrol area west of the Farralon Islands. Its captain was the experienced commander Nobuo Ishikawa, 50 years old, the I-15 being a large submarine compared to the Germans. uots of the time completed in 1940 was a submerged 3,654 ton B1 type submarine, 357 feet or 108 M long with a huge range of 14,000 nautical miles or 26,000 km. It had a crew of 94 and even carried a plane on a watertight deck. hanger and launched using a catapult and recovered using a crane the Osa e14 YC aircraft used for weapons reconnaissance the I-15 had six torpedo tubes and carried 17 long torpedo lances and also had a 140 m deck gun on the 14th December 1941 Imperial Headquarters in Tokyo ordered a supplementary mission for the nine Japanese submarines lurking off the west coast of the US.

On the night of December 25, Christmas Day, the submarines were to surface one or two miles offshore and proceed to bombard targets with 30 shots each from her deck guns. The propaganda value of such a symbolic assault on Christmas Day, thespecial holiday of the enemy, it would be immense. Ishikawa and the other Japanese submarine captains were all interested in carrying out this operation against the hated enemy Homeland. On December 17, I-15 surfaced near the Farralon Islands to recharge her batteries and air out the ship, the crew were allowed to go in groups to the conning tower bridge to see the lights of San Francisco across.

In the dark waters off the coast, I-15 continued to float off San Francisco for several more days, but no merchant ships were intercepted. Then, on December 22, came the disappointing news that the shore bombing operation scheduled for Christmas Day was postponed by express order of Combined Fleet Commander Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto to December 27 because the Japanese feared offend their German and Italian allies by launching an attack on Christmas Day, the sacred Christian festival, but delays ruined the plan by December 27, most submarines were reporting that they were running out of fuel and must immediately return to the Marshall Islands line in Tokyo the bombing plan was abandoned the Navy was evidently concerned that the American submarines would do exactly what the Japanese were doing and bombard coastal settlements in Japan in reluctant retaliation.

The submarines began to turn toward home off the west coast, but clearly Commander Ishikawa decided to attack San Francisco before leaving, as the long spear found in 1946 could only have come from his submarine, as no other Japanese submarine operated off to San Francisco during the war. He ordered an attack on the city using torpedoes instead of his gun so as not to violate his orders. Ishikawa would have reported a torpedo that hit a land target as a miss while firing on an enemy merchant ship, which was the purpose of his submarine. located in front of San Francisco in the first place, but what to target with a submarine, why not the Golden Gate Bridge, the very symbol of San Francisco, the art deco masterpiece was first opened to traffic in 1937, then it was the bridge longest pendant in the world at 4,200 feet or almost 3 km and the tallest is 746 feet or 2 27 M connects San Francisco to Marin County it was difficult to build the canal has a depth of more than 370 feet and is prone to violent winds and thick fogs the two weak points of the suspension bridge are its support towers, if substantial damage could be caused to the north or south tower the bridge could be structurally compromised, although it remains doubtful how much damage a long spear could cause to the enormous structure.

Ishikawa must have somehow fired the torpedo aimed at the tower. The south tower of the bridge, but the long spear went further south by a few hundred meters and instead impacted the soft sand of Marshall's Beach, where it remained intact until 1946. However, it seems unlikely that an experienced driver like Commander Ishikawa I would have bet everything on a single shot. At some distance, it seems more likely that, to increase his chances of hitting the Bridge Tower, he would have fired a series of two or three torpedoes, as he would have done against a single merchant ship or even a convoy, although the Bridge Tower A static target, the action of the sea could cause a single torpedo to travel widely, especially if fired from a great distance.

This is just speculation on my part, but I wouldn't be surprised if one or two longer Lancers were buried on adjacent beaches. Marshalls or even within San Francisco Bay itself have not yet been found, certainly asking Commander Ishikawa or any of his officers to confirm what really happened on December 27, 1941 has been impossible since the war because the I- 15 was sunk with all hands on 10 November 1942 by an American sweeper M off the British Solomon Islands, so the Japanese Marshall's Beach torpedo remains an intriguing mystery and one that may perhaps yield more clues in the future, but that's what I love about WWII, there are still so many of them.

Mysteries wait to be explained, so with the failure of the Japanese coastal bombing and arson attacks of 1941-42, Japan attempted one last time to attack the continental US using this time an unmanned weapon, the paper balloon was It has long been used for many structures in Japan. It proved to be a cheap and durable material for making a weapon. Once again the Japanese required the initial use of their submarine force to attack the US and in 1943 200 balloons were prepared to be launched from two modified submarines, the i34 and the I35, each balloon having a 20t and a range of over 600 thousand, although the operation was fully prepared by August 1943, the Imperial Japanese Navy realized that employing submarines on such missions would not have been a proper use of their potential, especially since the war had long since begun. time. deteriorate for Japan, the project was shelved, but the Imperial Japanese Army continued development.

Instead, the Army lacked the means to launch balloons from a point halfway between Japan and the US, so the new weapons had to be designed to launch from the Japanese islands. The Army balloon bomb. The project received the code name fugo or wind weapon. Army designers from the 9th Military Technical Research Institute and Wizard General Sooshi Kaba, in cooperation with scientists from the Tokyo Central Meteorological Observatory, produced a balloon design. Designated as type A, the balloon was made of 64 mulbury paper trees laminated, these sections formed the curved surface of the balloon, this was glued together with a form of potato paste forming a balloon envelope with a circumference of 100 feet, the envelope was then filled with 19,000 cubic feet of hydrogen to provide the necessary high ceiling , the weapon required under the envelope was suspended from a Dural woven ring with bombs and 36 sandbags attached to balls, controlled by three aneroid barometers and a small battery mounted on a platform upon which a circuit was controlled to maintain the altitude. and release the bombs the balloon's gondola could be loaded with high-explosive anti-personnel or incendiary bombs Japan called the new weapon Fuen Wedding or the incendiary bomb launching sites were located on the east coast of the island of Honu once the balloons were released were uncontrollable and reached North America, at the behest of wind currents sailing in the jet stream between 20 and 40,000 feet to maintain altitude, bags of ballast sand were automatically released.

If the balloon began to sink during the day, the balloon sailed at maximum altitude, but at night the envelope would pile up and sink as it became heavier. The altimeter would cause a set of blower plugs to fire, releasing some ballast and restoring altitude. When all the sand was discarded, the bombs would become the final ballast. They would be automatically released and the event time would occur. Somewhere over North America, eventually, a block of picric acid would explode, destroying the balloon's gondola, and a fuse would be ignited, connecting Ed to a charge on the balloon itself.

The resulting mixture of hydrogen, air and explosives would cause the balloon's envelope to burn up as a large orange fireball the first balloon launched on November 3, 1944 with a United States Navy patrol boat that discovered a balloon floating in the sea 67 miles from San Pedro California on November 5 the first known successful attack in the US occurred on December 6, 1944 bombs were dropped about 12 miles southwest of Owl Creek Mountain, near Thermopolis in Wyoming. Fragments of balloon and gondola wrappers were discovered in Alaska and Montana and forensic testing confirmed the remains were of Japanese origin; The American people were not informed of the attacks. and the media was ordered not to report on this alarming development, the US was also developing countermeasures to deal with this unique threat whose threat code called Operation Firefly the 4th US Air Force brought together combat to shoot down the balloons before they could release their payloads and many were One of them was shot down over Oregon.

American authorities feared that the Japanese might launch balloons equipped with chemical or biological weapons to land on American soil and to counter this threat, stocks of decontamination chemicals were quietly distributed in the Western states and farmers were asked to report any strange mark on crops or infection of animals that occurred, although authorities downplayed the potential damage the balloon bombs could cause to a US Army unit, the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion. nicknamed The Triple Nickel was trained to act as firejumpers in case firebombs set fire to the forest of 9,300 balloon bombs launched from Japan, only 200 12 were confirmed as having reached the United States and Mexico.

They landed as far east in the US as Michigan and another 73 were confirmed to have fallen in Canada. The only deaths caused by balloon bombs occurred on May 5, 1945 at Gearhard Mountain, near Blly Oregon. A picnic group consisting of one adult and five children were killed instantly while dragging an unexploded Japanese Navy ship. kg antipersonnel bomb outside forest the only known deaths caused by enemy action in the continental US during the war it is not known if any of the balloons caused forest fires in April 1945 the Japanese discontinued their balloon launchers largely Partly because the American media The blackout did not give them any information about the success or failure of their campaign, what is certain is the fact that many of the bombs were still missing and, after almost 80 years of deterioration, they could represent a serious risk to anyone who discovered one of these lethal relics.

Today in the US field balloon bombs certainly spread widely across the North American continent; For example, one hit a power line in Washington state, knocking out electricity to the Hanford Engineers Factory, where the US was manufacturing plutonium for the top-secret Manhattan atomic bomb project. Bombs fell in Oregon 37 in Alaska 28 in Washington state and 25 in California Seven fell in Nebraska, including Omaha, another fell 10 miles from Detroit and another near Grand Rapids Bombs continued to appear long after the end of the Second World War. World War in November 1953 A Japanese bomb was discovered by the Canadian military in Edmonton Alberta, while another was found by the US Air Force in Alaska in 1955 in southwestern Oregon in 1978.

Another Japanese bomb was found and destroyed in Canada in 2014. The remains of a balloon gondola, including those still alive. An ordinance was discovered near the town of Lumby. A live bomb dramatically embedded in the Earth was deemed too dangerous to move and was detonated on site by bomb disposal experts. Don't forget that viewers of Mark Felton's production will receive a special Call of War gift. World War II, click the link below to receive 13,000 gold and 1 month of free premium subscription, choose a country and fight your way to victory. Thanks for watching, please subscribe and share, and also check out my audiobook Channel War Stories with Mark Felton.

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