A Japanese submarine surfaces off Cape Blanco and launches a floatplane over Oregon
By September 1942, nine months after Pearl Harbor, the West Coast had not yet seen a direct attack on American soil. On September 9, 1942, the submarine I-25 surfaced west of Cape Blanco and launched a small floatplane flown by Warrant Officer Nobuo Fujita. Fujita dropped two incendiary bombs over the Siskiyou National Forest, one landing on Wheeler Ridge near Mount Emily, sixteen kilometers east of Brookings. Fire lookout Howard "Razz" Gardner had already spotted the plane and called it in; a recent rainstorm and quick response kept the resulting fire small.
This was the first time an enemy aircraft dropped bombs on the continental United States during World War II, and it happened in an Oregon forest, spotted by a civilian fire lookout with a two-way radio. The episode fed wartime fears of West Coast vulnerability that shaped precautions like blackout drills. Decades later, Fujita made unlikely postwar visits to Brookings as a gesture of reconciliation.
QHow deep was the crater left by the bomb that hit Wheeler Ridge?
The incendiary bomb that struck Wheeler Ridge gouged out a crater a full foot deep, a detail investigators noted when the FBI launched a full inquiry into the incident. Agents combed the site and recovered several bomb fragments, which along with the crater helped confirm the weapon's Japanese origin. The crater's modest size matched the bomb's relatively light 168-pound payload, built more for igniting timber than for blast damage. It stood as physical evidence of an attack that otherwise left almost no visible trace on the landscape: the only spot in the contiguous United States struck by an enemy bomb dropped from the air during the war.
QDid Fujita really come back to bomb Oregon a second time?
Yes. On September 29, 1942, three weeks after the Mount Emily raid, Fujita and Okuda Shoji flew the same Glen floatplane off the I-25 for a repeat run over the Oregon coast. Japanese records confirm both bombs were dropped again, but the second attack caused only negligible damage and drew even less notice than the first. American authorities never publicized it the way they'd quietly handled the September 9 incident. The mission changed nothing in Japan's war effort, and it marked the last time the submarine attempted an aerial bombing run against the mainland.
QWhat did Fujita actually hand over to Brookings when he returned two decades later?
Fujita presented the city with his family's samurai sword, an heirloom roughly 400 years old that had been passed down through generations of his family. He gave it during his visit as Grand Marshal of Brookings' Azalea Festival. Before his U.S. trip, the Japanese government had secured assurance that he would face no war crimes prosecution. The sword stayed on display at Brookings City Hall for years until 1995, when Fujita personally moved it into a new case at the city's library. It remains on display there today.
