Oregon Firebombing
9 SEPTEMBER 1942
OREGON FIREBOMBING
“All is ready, Sir,” reported Warrant Flying Officer Nubuo Fujita to his skipper, CDR Meiji Tagami, of the submarine I-25.
“Very well. Good luck, Fujita.”
With that Fujita and his flight observer Petty Officer Shoji Okuda boarded their Type 96 “Geta” mono-wing, dual pontoon seaplane and strapped themselves snug for the catapult off the afterdeck of the submarine. Once airborne they steered a course east, into the orange haze of the rising sun, toward the Cape Blanco lighthouse on the southern Oregon coast.
Japanese submarines had been operating off the western United States coastline since December 1941. They had sunk American freighters within sight of land and had even shelled factories and forts along the California and Oregon coasts. The advanced state of Japanese submarine technology, that allowed cruising ranges of 6000 miles or more, failed only in its absence of radar. This limitation was addressed in the I-15-class with the inclusion of an airplane, stowed in 12 pieces in a hangar behind the conning tower. In less than 20 minutes on the surface crewmen could assemble the plane then catapult it into the air to scout ahead of the sub. But the light of this early dawn would see I-25’s plane used for more than just scouting. Today Japan would strike the first blow behind the coast of the continental United States by a foreign enemy since the War of 1812.
Fujita crossed the coastline about 0600, where he was spotted but misidentified by a US coast watcher. Under each wing he carried a 70 kg bomb, each packed with 512 incendiary pellets that would scatter across a 200-yard circle and burn at 2000o. It was Fujita’s intent to drop these bombs in a remote reach of the Oregon forest thereby starting a destructive fire that would wreak havoc throughout the American northwest. Fujita dropped the first bomb 50 miles inland, flew 10 minutes further east, then dropped the second. Both landed on Wheeler Ridge in the Siskiyou National Forest, and in both cases, Fujita saw the orange glow of the scattering incendiaries. He dove to treetop level and turned for the coast. He re-crossed the coastline about 0630, where he was again spotted and again misidentified. On his way back to the sub he spotted two American freighters crawling northward against the Humbolt Current.
Though the intended conflagration did not occur, back aboard I-25 Fujita’s success was greeted with the cheers of sailors proud to have avenged Doolittle’s raid of six months earlier. Tagami sped after the two freighters but aborted the chase when an American patrol plane spotted the sub and forced her under.
Watch for more “Today in Naval History” 13 SEP 26
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Orita, Zenji with Joseph D. Harrington. I-Boat Captain. Canoga Park, CA: Major Books, 1976, pp. 113-16.
Webber, Bert. Silent Siege-III: Japanese Attacks on North America in World War II–Ships Sunk Air Raids Bombs Dropped Civilians Killed. Medford, OR: Webb Research Group, 1992, pp. 131-40, 217-25.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: Fujita’s bomb did not even require the efforts of Oregon firefighters to extinguish. Having unintentionally chosen the rain-soaked month of September, all his incendiaries simply smoldered out. Fujita and I-25 made an identical second bombing run, also on Oregon, twenty days later with equally ineffective results.
Nubuo Fujita survived the war and returned to Oregon several times. Indeed, a friendly, welcoming relationship developed over the years between he and the city of Brookings, Oregon. Fujita had been particularly interested in developing the youth of both Japan and America. He arranged for several Brookings high school students to take an exchange semester in Japan, and he contributed toward the purchase of children’s books by the Brookings public library. On 9 September 1992, the 50th anniversary of his bombing, the 80-year-old Fujita hiked to the spot of the above bombing and planted a redwood tree in a private ceremony promoting continued peace between his country and the United States. Fujita passed away 30 September 1997 at age 85.
