Oregon Coast
Glen bombing I-25 Two attacks were carried out in retaliation for the Dolittle raid on the 9th and 29th of September 1942. Both were even less effective than the Dolittle effort. Boyd and Yoshida (The Japanese Submarine Force and World War II) have more details on all the attacks carried out by Japanese submarines on the US mainland.

http://www.portorfordlifeboatstation.org/article1.html

On Wednesday morning, September 9, 1942, the Imperial Japanese Navy submarine I-25 surfaced west of Cape Blanco and launched a small seaplane piloted by Chief Flying Officer Nobuo Fujita. Fujita flew southeast over the Oregon coast, dropping incendiary bombs on Mount Emily, 10 miles northeast of Brookings.

After Fujita's bombing run on Mount Emily, the I-25 came under attack by U.S. Army Air Corps aircraft, forcing the submarine to seek refuge on the ocean floor off Port Orford. The American attacks were unsuccessful, and Fujita was able to launch an additional bombing sortie three weeks later. Shortly after this sortie, the submarine sank the SS Camden, the SS Larry Doheny, and the Soviet (Russian) submarine L-16.

Nobuo Fajita
Chief Flying Officer Nobuo Fujita was born in 1911 and was drafted into the Imperial Japanese Navy in 1932, becoming a pilot in 1933. Although he was on the I-25 during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, non-battle damage to the aircraft prevented him from participating in the operation.
Fujita came up with the idea of using a submarine-based seaplane to launch attacks on the U.S. mainland, as well the strategic Panama Canal. His idea was approved and the mission given to the I-25. His two attacks on Oregon in September 1942 constituted the first attacks on the continental United States since the British invasion in 1814 during the War of 1812. He remains the only enemy pilot to have ever dropped bombs on the continental United States.

Fujita continued reconnaissance flying until 1944, when he returned to Japan to train kamikaze pilots. After the war ended, Fujita opened a metal sales business in Japan. Twenty years after the attack, Fujita was invited to several towns on the southern Oregon Coast near the area of his air attacks. The pilot presented the city of Brookings with a 350-year old samurai sword as a gesture of friendship. Fujita was also made an honorary citizen of Gold Beach. He died in 1997.

In the summer of 1942, the Japanese high command developed a plan to attack the dense forest in the Pacific Northwest. The Japanese hoped that a large forest fire would draw American attention to defense of the west coast and cause the U.S. Navy to reposition its Pacific fleet closer to the mainland. The I-25 was ordered to undertake this operation, and was provided with six incendiary bombs for the mission.

So began a very successful patrol for the I-25. The submarine departed Yokosuka on August 15, 1942, and arrived off the Port Orford Heads on the Oregon coast by early September in bad weather. By September 9, weather conditions had improved. The I-25 surfaced just before dawn and the Glen seaplane was assembled and readied for the attack. Fujita took off at sunrise and flew northeast toward the easily visible Cape Blanco lighthouse. After flying southeast for about 50 miles, Fujita dropped one of his two incendiary bombs on Mount Emily, releasing the second a few minutes later a several miles east of the first. The bad weather that had delayed his mission a few days earlier had saturated the woods, and rendered the bombs ineffective. Otherwise, the bombs could have started large forest fires.

After releasing the bombs, Fujita descended to low level and returned to the waiting submarine. A U.S. Army A-29 bomber aircraft on patrol from McChord Field in Tacoma spotted the submarine, now on the surface to recover Fujita’s aircraft. The A-29 attacked the submarine with several bombs, but only inflicted minor damage as the submarine dove to the relative safety of the ocean floor just west of Port Orford.

The captain of the I-25 mounted a second attempt to ignite a large fire in the Oregon forests. The submarine surfaced just after midnight on Tuesday, September 29, about 50 miles west of Cape Blanco. Although the entire west coast of Oregon was blacked out, the Cape Blanco lighthouse was still in operation. Using the light as a navigation beacon, Fujita flew east over the coast for about 90 minutes and dropped his bombs. Although Japanese Navy records indicate that Fujita observed flames on the ground after this attack, no traces of the attacks have ever been located. The only U.S. records of this attack were of an unidentified aircraft flying east of Port Orford.

The I-25 did not use its last two incendiary bombs, and reverted to torpedo attacks on American shipping. On Sunday, October 4, the submarine sank the tanker SS Camden off Coos Bay on the south Oregon coast. The following Tuesday, the I-25 was successful again, this time sinking the tanker SS Larry Doheny off Cape Sebastian.

The I-25 departed the Oregon coast a few days later. On October 11 while en route to its homeport of Yokosuka, the Japanese submarine attacked and sank the Soviet submarine L-16 while the Russians were in transit from Dutch Harbor, Alaska, to San Francisco. The captain of the I-25 believed he was attacking an American ship; Japan and the Soviet Union were not at war at this time.

SUBMARINE ATTACK ON SYDNEY HARBOUR by Berry ARTHUR OAM
Acknowledgments to Forestville RSL Sub-Branch News June 2000.

Warrant Officer Nobuo FUJITA joined the Japanese Navy in 1935 and trained as a naval pilot. He was interviewed in 1985; Second Lieutenant Susumu ITO was interviewed in April 1949, when he owned and operated a fishing tackle store at Iwakuni (near Hiroshima) and was seUing equipment to Australian airmen serving with the British Commonwealth based there at the time. The following article was the result of these interviews. Both FuJITA and ITO were instructors in the latter part of WWH and this probably accounted for them surviving the conflict, where most of their feUow airmen perished.

"February 13, I looked through the periscope at the lighthouse off Sydney, studying the high sandstone cliffs of Sydney Heads. Inside that narrow passage was a harbour teeming with enemy shipping, but five days passed before the seas were calm enough to attempt a launching. At sunrise on the 18’h, OKUDA my observer and I climbed into the float plane and soon we were flying inland north of Sydney, to circle back over the harbour. It was a beautiful sight, although at any moment I expected to see allied fighters diving out of the sun at us as we flew slowly along".

Warrant Officer Nobuo FUJITA thus described the first of two flights he made over Sydney during 1942 in floatplanes launched from submarine 1-25. Second Lieutenant Susumu ITO from 1-21 made one the same year and in 1943. Both airmen, amazingly, were to survive the war and tell the tale.

The lack of any real night time aerial defence by Australian and our Allies also enabled similar unchallenged flights over Melbourne, Hobart, Auckland, Wellington, Suva, Noumea as well as Hawaii and the United States mainland, in addition to the Japanese reconnoitered coastal defences on the other side of the world including Zanzibar and Durban. Not a single aircraft was lost by opposition to these WWII spies in the sky despite allied radar, searchlights, anti-aircraft guns, squadrons of fighters and code breaking and intelligence gathering services,

The aircraft used for these forays over foreign ports were small Yokosuka E14Y Reconnaissance floatplanes with a pair of floats and crew of two. More commonly known by the code name ‘Glen’ to the Allies, they were powered by a 360 horsepower radial engine, cruised at 160km/hr and had a range of some 900 kilometres. The upper surfaces were painted a dark green, with light grey undersides. Armament, if carried, consisted of a single 7.7 millimetre machinegun in the rear cockpit and there was provision for two 100kg bombs, one under each wing.

For takeoff, the submarines turned into the wind at cruising speed and the aircraft with engine at full power was catapulted along a short rail on the forward deck by compressed air. Retrieval meant landing in the sea beside the submarine, being hoisted aboard by a small folding crane, then a thirty-minute disassembly for storage in the watertight hanger in front of the conning tower. This additional superstructure also created instability for the vessel on the surface, causing it to further roll. in heavy seas and high winds.

Both during assembly, which often took up to an hour, and launch and subsequent reconnaissance retrieval the Japanese submarines were exceptionally vulnerable. As a consequence reconnaissance was usually around dawn or on a moonlight night when lookouts on board still had to remain particularly vigilant.
Meanwhile, back over Sydney, FUJITA’s aircraft droned purposely on, bathed in the warm glow of the rising sun behind him. OKUDA, in the rear, carefully marked the chart, indicating the type and size of moored vessels at Sydney Cove, Glebe Island, Pyrrnont and Woolloomooloo. Like latter day tourists, the airmen gazed down at the scene below.

That night, back at the submarine 1-25, the radiomen were kept busy relaying the details of the morning’s sightings to Tokyo Naval Headquarters. Eight days later, January 26, the episode was repeated over Melbourne with the Japanese floatplane cheekily tracking as far inland as the Laverton airbase.
Hobart was next, at dawn on March I. FUJITA was later to recount "we flew lazily over the seaport, mapping its defences with absurd ease". Wellington and Auckland in New Zealand followed on March 8 and 12, then Suva in Fiji for the 18th . The intelligence gathering tour went along unimpeded.

Both FUJITA and OKUDA had devised a plan should they be intercepted by allied aircraft. They would deliberately draw them away from the submarine, until they ran out of fitel. They planned to land, destroy the papers on board, punch holes in their floats to sink the aircraft and take their lives with pistols they carried. Fortunately for them this dramatic plan never had to be put into effect. FUJITA was back over Sydney on the night of May 23 the same year, this time eight days before the three midget submarines were to enter the harbour. His mission was to try and establish the locations and targets most suitable for the impending attack.
Lieutenant Susumu ITO and his observer Petty Officer IWASAKI were back over Sydney only a week later, in the early hours of May 30. ITO, then aged 27, had been especially selected, as had FUJITA, because they were regarded as two of the Japanese most skilful night flyersITO and IWASAKI were launched from submarine 1-21, one of a pack of five, including those carrying the midget submarines, dispersed outside the Heads for the planned raid.

ITO was catapulted off at 0300, just before moonrise. The sea was choppy with a rising wind and there was a low cloud ceiling at 2000 feet. This was Sydney’s third visit by an enemy floatplane and this time the crew carried the official Japanese map, which they found was very accurate on harbour detail, but highly inaccurate on suburb markings. "I flew in over North Head at a height of 1500 feet", ITO remembers, "and descended to 600 feet to fly up harbour, while my observer sketched the position of the boom and its entrance."

"Trying to get my bearings I sought Mascot aerodrome but my map details were misleading until, ITO told Australians with a smile in a postwar interview, "Mascot heard my engine, apparently mistaking me for a friendly aircraft, and obligingly turned on their runway lights."

The Japanese airmen, as they approached Garden Island, observed what they believe to be an ‘A’ class cruiser (probably USS C11ICAGO), then skimmed at a mere 450 feet towards the bridge. Ascending again over Cockatoo Island Dockyard where welding flashes could be clearly seen from the men working below. ITO skillfully evaded more searchlights on the return flight towards Farm Cove, observed another ship on the north side of the harbour and flew out over North Head towards the open sea. He and his observer had been ten minutes over Sydney. Meanwhile the wind had strengthened and in the darkness the Japanese airmen couldn’t locate their mother submarine. ITO, after circling, flew back to North Head, turned, and taking a calculated risk, flashed his lights for two or three seconds, as he flew back to the rendezvous point

The watching submarine responded writh a five-second flash and ITO, after several attempts, finally alighted on the rough water beside it. The seas were running high in a predawn squall, however, and the floatplane capsized forcing ITO and IWASAKI to scramble clear. It was ten minutes before the sailors on the deck of 1-21 were able to haul them aboard. The floats of the overturned aircraft were quickly punctured by submariners to sink the evidence and ITO reported his sightings to the captain.

The next evening, 3 1, May, the three midget submarines entered Sydney Harbour with details from the previous night’s flight. On his second flight over Sydney, around midnight on 25/26 January 1943, ITO again took off from submarine 1-21 from a position 160 Hometres northeast of Nor-th Head. Under full moon in a clear sky he swept over the heads at 9000 feet, descending to 3000 over Garden Island then flew above the Harbour Bridge towards Mascot. He noted fewer lights than before and other aircraft also flying.

"This time", ITO claims, "they knew I was an intruder, searching lights groped the sky and anti-aircraft guns fired at me. But my aircraft wasn’t hit." Some twenty minutes were spent over the city. This fourth and last flight over Sydney was again to check shipping and the effect it might have on the battle then raging between the Americans and Japanese over Guadalcanal.

The night following this last flight one of the other submarines shelled the harbour in an attempt to destroy the allied flying boats moored in Rose Bay. Meanwhile 1-2 proceeded up the coast to the mouth of the Brisbane River, which was observed by periscope.

Editor’s note. The engine from ITO’s floatplane was discovered in 1999 by divers on one of Sydney’s northern beaches, it appears the current had carried the remains of the aircraft to the beach surf line where it snagged on rocks and was broken up by pounding surf. The exact location of the engine has been kept a secret, however a TV documentary is currently under production on the above-mentioned flights over Sydney.