Oregon bombing
The Oregon bombing refers to an event during World War II when a Japanese submarine launched an aerial attack on the U.S. mainland. On September 9, 1942, the Japanese submarine I-25 deployed a floatplane that dropped incendiary bombs over the forested areas near Brookings, Oregon. The pilot, Chief Warrant Officer Nobuo Fujita, and his crew targeted the region with the intention of igniting forest fires. Although witnesses reported the incident, the fires caused by the bombs were quickly contained due to wet conditions, resulting in minimal damage. A second bombing attempt occurred on September 29 but also failed to produce significant effects. This event was part of Japan's broader strategy of retaliatory operations against the United States, following the Doolittle Raid earlier that year. While the bombing was deemed a success by the Japanese, it had little impact on American morale or military operations.
Oregon bombing
The Event Incident in which a small plane piloted by a Japanese naval warrant officer dropped incendiary bombs on pine woods near the Oregon coast
Also Known As Lookout air raid
Date September 9, 1942
Place Near Brookings, Oregon
This bombing was among several assaults on American territory carried out by the Japanese early in World War II, but it did not result in the loss of life and caused little damage.
On the morning of September 9, 1942, the Japanese submarine I-25 surfaced off the coast of Oregon to launch a collapsible Yokosuka E14Y floatplane using a catapult. Up until this time, such planes (which American authorities called “Glens”) had been used only for reconnaissance, but Chief Warrant Officer Nobuo Fujita had received approval to carry two 170-pound incendiary bombs on the tiny plane with the objective of starting forest fires.
Fujita flew some fifty miles inland to a point about eight miles south of Brookings. The plane’s navigator and gunner, Petty Officer Shoji Okuda, then released the first bomb over Wheeler Ridge. From their vantage point at eight thousand feet, the two were able to determine that the bomb’s incendiary pellets had started a fire in the thick forest below them. They then dropped their second bomb a few miles away and returned to their submarine.
Thanks to several witnesses who saw or heard the Glen, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was notified within hours, and the country’s Western Defense Command received authorization to strengthen its defenses. Personnel in Forest Service lookout towers pinpointed the blaze and brought it under control easily, as conditions were unseasonably wet. If the second bomb started a fire, it went out quickly.
Fujita and Okuda made a second sortie very early on the morning of September 29 over the Grassy Knob area near Port Orford. Although they dropped two more bombs and believed that they had started another fire, it failed to spread.
Impact
In the wake of the bombing raid led by Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle against Japan in April, 1942, Japan undertook several retaliatory operations against United States territory in the hope of damaging American morale while raising that of its own people. Some of these operations, such as the campaign to drop incendiary bombs from balloons over the western United States, were relatively successful. Others, such as the disastrous Battle of Midway in early June, 1942, were failures. Although the Japanese rated the bombing of Oregon a success, it did negligible damage and had no effect on the American war effort.
Bibliography
Horn, Steve. The Second Attack on Pearl Harbor: Operation K and Other Japanese Attempts to Bomb America in World War II. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2005.
McCash, William. Bombs over Brookings: The World War II Bombings of Curry County, Oregon, and the Postwar Friendship Between Brookings and the Japanese Pilot, Nobuo Fujita. Corvallis, Oreg.: William McCash, 2005.
Webber, Bert. Silent Siege III: Japanese Attacks on North America in World War II—Ships Sunk, Air Raids, Bombs Dropped, Civilians Killed. Medford, Oreg.: Webb Research Group, 1992.