The Fujita Plan: Japanese Attacks on the United States and Australia During the Second World War

by Mark Felton

  Now it was the turn of Canada to be attacked by the Japanese on her own doorstep, though the target for shore bombardment was incongruous to say the least. Vancouver Island forms part of the huge Canadian province of British Columbia, lying in the Pacific Northwest. The shoreline is dotted with numerous lighthouses that have for generations guided the local fishing fleets, as well as trans-Pacific telegraph stations vital to late nineteenth through to mid-twentieth century international communications. Estevan Point lighthouse was constructed in 1909, and is one of the oldest Euro-Canadian structures in the region, standing in 1942 close to a local Indian settlement called Hesquiat. It was a relatively remote area little affected by the Pacific war, but all that was rudely shattered in the late evening of 20 June 1942 by the Japanese submarine I-26.

  Commander Minoru Yokota surfaced his boat approximately two miles out at sea directly off the lighthouse and ordered his gunners to pump shells at the building in the hope of toppling the structure. Only twenty-eight years before the whole Canadian Pacific coastline had been placed under the protection of the Imperial Japanese Navy, but now they had come to spread destruction in this quiet backwater. In 1914, when Canada united with the rest of the Empire and declared war on Germany in response to Britain’s declaration, the nation’s attentions and its limited naval forces were concentrated upon the conflict in Europe and the protection of the Atlantic seaboard. The Pacific was not the central theatre of war, and although a German threat existed as the Kaiser maintained a number of colonies throughout the region, Britain’s ally, Japan, was able to deal with this latent threat. Canada recognized that the trans-Pacific telegraph stations were vulnerable to German attack, as a German naval landing party had cut the telegraph at Fanning Island early in the conflict, and the Canadians stationed what troops they could spare to defend the stations located on Vancouver Island. The Japanese stepped into the breach and offered to provide naval forces to patrol and protect the Canadian Pacific coast from any German intervention, and Ottawa gratefully accepted this offer. The Japanese stationed a heavy cruiser, the Izumo, in Canada at Bamfield on the west coast of Vancouver Island. By 1942, however, the earlier friendship between Canada and Japan had dissolved, with hundreds of Canadian soldiers being killed, wounded and taken into a cruel captivity following the Battle of Hong Kong in December 1941.

  Yokota’s shelling of the lighthouse at Estevan Point has recently come under historical scrutiny in Canada, and the lighthouse attack has become a controversial issue. According to the Canadian government, the I-26 fired between twenty and thirty 140mm rounds from her deck-gun at the lighthouse, but caused almost no damage before leaving the area after an hour sitting on the surface offshore. There are those who doubt whether the attack was the work of the Japanese, and these ‘conspiracy theorists’ have suggested that the shells actually originated from an American ship or submarine, and intentionally failed to cause any material damage. The harmless attack was made, according to the revisionist historians, in an effort to bolster Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King’s Liberal government that found itself in the midst of a controversial move to implement conscription in Canada. Historians writing in Canada’s foremost history magazine The Beaver suggest ‘The timing of the submarine attack seems like a stroke of phenomenal luck for…King, the Liberal party, and, possibly, even the continued unity of Canada. Or was the timing a little too perfect?’13 The authors noted that the debate on the controversial conscription bill was at that moment raging in parliament in Ottawa. ‘Perhaps a discreet “enemy incident” of the manufactured sort was just the thing needed to galvanize Canadian public opinion toward the kind of all-out effort needed to justify overseas conscription.’14 According to post-war statements made by Commander Yokota, skipper of the I-26, chief gunner Hashiro Hayashi took aim on the lighthouse at a range of two miles and commenced firing at 10.15 p.m. on 20 June. Although approximately twenty to thirty shells, accounts vary, were fired at the very prominent and tall target, not a single round struck either the lighthouse or the nearby Indian settlement. This incredibly poor gunnery has provided conspiracy theorists with evidence for an American firing the shots instead, and deliberately missing the human habitation and important navigational beacon whilst posing as an enemy intruder. Yokota explained that the appalling marksmanship of his gunners was ‘because of the dark, our gun-crew had difficulty in making the shots effective’.15 The revisionist historians who challenge the very presence of the I-26 point out that even at the time of the attack, 10.15 p.m. on a late June evening at such a latitude, ‘it would have been still light enough to read a newspaper’.16 They also suggest that Yokota was ‘honour-bound to corroborate any official statement made by the newly established authorities, the victorious Allies’.17 There are certainly some inconsistencies that have allowed doubts as to the veracity of the attack to creep into the frame. The lighthouse keeper, Robert Lally, made a note in his log during the attack of two ‘warships’ firing on Estevan Point from two different directions. In all later government reports the two warships were reduced to one submarine. The official report submitted by the senior Canadian naval officer in the Pacific to the government in Ottawa in July 1942 stated that the bombardment ‘was in all probability carried out by one submarine mounting 5.5-inch guns forward of the sub’s conning tower’.18 However, Japanese I-class submarines such as the I-26 were fitted with a single 140mm (5.5-inch) gun mounted behind the conning tower. American submarines, on the other hand, match the Canadian officer’s description of the offending vessel perfectly, and American boats were the only other submarines operating in that region at that time.

  On 3 July 1973 an unexploded Japanese Navy 140mm shell was discovered close to Estevan Point. Although Canadian bomb disposal experts destroyed the shell, a fragment survives and is on display at the Maritime Museum of British Columbia. This physical hard evidence of the Japanese attack goes some way to disproving some sort of elaborate subterfuge being played out on the Canadians by the United States in order to solidify Canada’s resolve regarding a full commitment to the war in Europe. But, the claims made by some Canadian historians are also compelling. After all, why did Yokota select such a militarily and economically irrelevant target as an old lighthouse to bombard when his contemporaries making similar attacks along the American west coast attacked a naval base and an oil refinery? Perhaps it was not the target that was important – after all, how much damage could a single Japanese submarine cause to any shore target? Surely the mere suggestion that Japan was capable and willing to attack land targets in the United States and Canada is the point. The attacks primarily were designed to spread fear and panic among the citizenry of those two nations and not to cause extensive damage. The debate over the Estevan Point attack may rumble on for many years to come, with the truth perhaps always remaining elusive. Yokota went to his grave adamant that he had indeed shelled Canadian soil, and performed the mission he had been assigned.

  The unique Japanese attack on Fort Stevens in northern Oregon on 21 June 1942, noteworthy as the first enemy attack on a military target located on the mainland of the United States since the conclusion of the War of 1812 at New Orleans in 1815 (Commander Nishino in the I-17 had already claimed the first attack of any kind made upon the mainland when he shelled the Ellwood Oil Refinery in California on 23 February 1942 against direct orders issued by Admiral Nagano), resulted from an order from Rear-Admiral Shigeaki Yamazaki, commanding the 1st Submarine Squadron. Yamazaki’s order demonstrated an about-face in Japanese strategy, following on from Colonel James Doolittle’s air raid on Tokyo on 18 April. The Japanese had been completely surprised by the appearance in the skies over their capital city of stripped down B-25 Mitchell bombers. The tiny tonnage of bombs dropped from these medium bombers only caused very superficial damage, but the propaganda value of the raid to the Allies was immense and the Japanese high command immediately dropped all reservations regarding shelling American and Canadian shore targets from submarines. The humiliation of 18
April had to be avenged, and submarines were the only assets the Japanese possessed at that time able to come close enough to the North American mainland to strike at the hated enemy home front. The Japanese government also hastily drew up some new laws prohibiting certain forms of attack against their people and property that were actually used to murder or punish unfortunate Allied aircrew that fell into their hands. It became punishable by death or ten or more years imprisonment to commit any of the following offences:

  Any air attack,

  (1)

  upon ordinary people

  (2)

  upon private property of a non-military nature

  (3)

  against other than military objectives

  (4)

  ‘violations of war-time international law’.19

  The two air attacks conducted by Fujita against Oregon in 1942 violated Japanese military law on the first three counts listed above. But the Japanese military and navy already had broken just about every aspect of international law since 1937 with impunity.

  The I-25 began her third war patrol on 11 May 1942, departing from Yokosuka in Japan in company with her sister-vessel, the I-26. Both were bound for a patrol along the north-west coast of the United States. As related earlier, only the I-25 carried an E14Y1 reconnaissance aircraft in her watertight deck hanger, the I-26’s hanger was left deliberately empty. Both boats had a vitally important role to play in the Japanese attack on Midway Island, Operation Mi. The Japanese Midway operational plan called for a diversionary attack to be made on Dutch Harbor in Alaska, in the hopes of drawing off American aircraft carriers and other warships from the vicinity of Midway Island. On 27 May the I-25’s floatplane, piloted by the redoubtable Chief Warrant Officer Nobuo Fujita, conducted a successful reconnaissance flight over Kodiak Island, spotting an American cruiser and two destroyers. After the successful recovery of Fujita (the I-26’s hangar had been kept empty just in case the I-25 had been unable to recover the floatplane), the I-25 sailed on down the west coast of America, arriving off the coast of Oregon on 14 June. While off the Oregon coast the I-25 launched a series of false submarine periscopes constructed of painted bamboo, which were mounted on special submerged rafts, designed to confuse local American antisubmarine forces that were conducting regular patrols along the coast.

  On 18 June, Lieutenant-Commander Tagami, commanding officer of the I-25, received new instructions from Rear-Admiral Yamazaki, ordering him to attack American military targets along the west coast by shelling them with his deck-gun. The I-26 received the same instructions at the same time, and went on to attack the Estevan Point lighthouse in Canada on the evening of 20 June, as related before. Just after midnight on 20 June 1942 Commander Tagami in the I-25 came upon the brand new British freighter Fort Camosun approximately seventy miles south-southeast of Cape Flattery.

  The Fort Camosun was on her maiden voyage from Victoria, British Columbia, to the United Kingdom loaded with zinc, lead, plywood and an assortment of other raw materials. Tagami lined the I-25 up for a shot and fired a single Long Lance torpedo at the freighter. The torpedo struck the Fort Camosun, and as the merchantman slowed to a halt Tagami ordered the I-25 to surface. He intended to finish off the freighter with his deck-gun in order to conserve his very limited supply of torpedoes, and several armour-piercing shells slammed into the badly damaged ship causing further mayhem.

  In the meantime, the radio operator had managed to get off a distress call that was picked up by the Royal Canadian Navy. The corvette HMCS Quesnel immediately set sail for the scene of the attack, a journey that would take her six hours to complete. In the meantime the I-25 had once more submerged and Tagami was monitoring his victim through the periscope, expecting the Fort Camosun to succumb to her injuries and sink at any moment. When the Quesnel arrived at the scene she immediately attacked the Japanese submarine, and shortly afterwards another Canadian corvette, HMCS Edmunston, joined in the attack and attempted to screen the Fort Camosun from the lurking Japanese submarine while her crew were taken off. Tagami realized the danger his boat was in with two anti-submarine corvettes in the area and wisely decided to withdraw. Incredibly, twenty-four hours later the Fort Camosun was still afloat, possibly buoyed up by the tons of plywood packed into her holds. The Edmunston took the freighter under tow, but was unable to haul the large ship to shore by herself. Three tugs joined in the effort to save the Fort Camosun, the Henry Foss out of Tacoma, Washington, the Salvage Queen, and the USS Tatmuck. Between them they gingerly towed the Fort Camosun into Neah Bay. Her journey to the dockyards and extensive repairs would take her first to Esquimalt in British Columbia, then to Victoria, and finally into Seattle. The Fort Camosun survived her ordeal at the hands of the I-25, and later in her career survived another torpedo strike, this time in the Gulf of Aden.

  After the unsuccessful attack on the British freighter on 20 June, Tagami arrived off the mouth of the Columbia River the following day. Japanese naval intelligence had informed the I-25’s skipper that there was a US Navy submarine base located at the port of Astoria, close to the river mouth. However, lying between the I-25 and her intended target was the huge Fort Stevens. Work had begun on constructing Fort Stevens in 1863 in the middle of the American Civil War, after President Abraham Lincoln expressed his concern that Confederate (and British) privateers operating in the Pacific could theoretically have raided towns lying along the Columbia and Willamette Rivers. Something needed to be done to protect the entrance to the Columbia, and the result was the construction of three forts named Stevens, Columbia and Canby, each made up of several emplaced gun batteries, Stevens being the most extensive. Although not to see any action during the Civil War (the fort was not fitted with cannon until shortly after the conclusion of hostilities in 1865), Fort Stevens nevertheless provided a formidable obstacle for any seaborne raider attempting to penetrate the Columbia River.

  Time passed, and the weapons at the three forts were progressively upgraded and modernized; some of the batteries were closed down especially during the lean inter-war years, and National Guardsmen continued to man and train on the fortifications. The defences were never tested for real until Commander Tagami and the I-25 hove into view on the night of 21 June 1942. Fort Stevens was fitted with many types and calibres of artillery, all of it dating from the turn of the century. There were 6-inch and 8-inch guns, and 12-inch mortars. One of the most novel weapons mounted on the fort were 10-inch rifles, a particularly impressive and innovative gun. Each time the weapon was fired the barrel would recoil backwards to an automatic locking-point, which meant that the weapon actually disappeared inside its embrasure allowing the crew to reload the rifle out of sight of the enemy. Not surprisingly, this weapon was nicknamed the ‘Disappearing rifle’. Fort Stevens contained enough firepower to stand off a Japanese fleet, let alone a single puny submarine armed with nothing more impressive than a 140mm deck-gun.

  Protecting the mouth of the Columbia was a ring of electrically controlled mines anchored below the water’s surface at selected depths. A total of 156 mines were arranged into twelve groups of thirteen, each group linked to a control room in the fort by cables. A final deterrent to a potential enemy were Sperry searchlights mounted on the fort. Each searchlight was enormously powerful, able to illuminate a ship at a maximum range of six to eight miles, doubly important to the fort because it lacked radar (all radar sets had been allocated to the army for anti-aircraft duties).

  Sunday, 21 June was the longest day of the year. The air was warm as the I-25 slowly and discreetly trailed fishing boats heading into the approaches to the Columbia River in the darkness. A myriad of lights twinkled and glittered from the shore, indicating to the Japanese officers on the conning tower the town of either Astoria or Seaside. The wind was a mere 4 knots, which meant that the sea was calm and therefore Warrant Officer Sensuke Tao, the boat’s chief gunner, should not have encountered undue difficulties hitting his target. Indeed, down on the deck, Tao was overseeing his gunners as they prepared
the weapon for action, the barrel pointing up at thirty to forty degrees, all ready to begin pumping rounds onto the American shore.

  All three forts, Stevens, Columbia and Canby, were in telephone contact with each other. As reports of vessels out at sea were made by visual observation, this information was passed around the forts. As the I-25 silently drifted across the entrance to the Columbia River, approximately 20,000 yards offshore, the troops manning the batteries expected another quiet and uneventful watch. Commander Tagami gave the order to commence firing, and with a wave of his hand Warrant Officer Tao fired the first shell landward. As the first Japanese shells began exploding around Fort Stevens all hell broke loose. At Fort Columbia, Corporal Patrick Jordan was the senior NCO still on duty. Inside the duty office there were two black telephones, the alert phones, and one of these began ringing. The voice at the other end was excited, and exclaimed ‘Fort Stevens is under fire, sound your alert!’20 Jordan could not believe his ears, and replied, ‘What the hell did you just say?’21 to which the soldier repeated himself more urgently. Jordan quickly put through a call to the off-duty senior NCO, First Sergeant Swaggert, ‘I just got a call from Fort Stevens,’ he said, ‘and they said Fort Stevens is under fire, sound the alert.’22 Swaggert took the news calmly, and barked back at Jordan, ‘Well sound the God damn alert!’23 Jordan rushed outside to where there was positioned a large hand-operated air raid siren, which he began cranking with alacrity.

  Soon the night air, already rent by the whistle and loud bangs of the incoming Japanese shells was further disturbed by the mournful wail of the siren, as troops rushed to man their positions and prepared to return fire. Fort Stevens, however, was destined not to fire a single shot in reply to the I-25’s bold attack. The Senior Duty Officer at the Group Fire Control Station in charge of ordering the batteries to fire, Captain Robert Huston, refused to give the order. As far as Huston could tell there were three problems that prevented him from unleashing the fort’s considerable firepower at the Japanese interloper. Firstly, from the distant muzzle-flash of the Japanese deck-gun Huston estimated that the enemy vessel was approximately 20,000 yards from the fort. Although the 10-inch rifles mounted on the fort were much more potent weapons than the puny 140mm (5.5-inch) Japanese gun, the antiquated nature of the fort’s armament meant that the rifles could only shoot a maximum of 16,200 yards. Secondly, the enemy vessel appeared to be moving and firing, and Huston lacked radar with which to accurately control his fall of shot onto the target, assuming the enemy vessel came within range. Thirdly, and perhaps rather ignominiously, Huston believed that if he ordered the batteries to open fire the Japanese would easily pinpoint the muzzle-flashes from the big 10-inch rifles, and begin a form of counter-battery fire on the fort’s main armament. As the rifles were out of range the Japanese gunners could have hit the American gunners with impunity. In the meantime, confused American gunners stood by their weapons wondering when on earth their officers would issue the order to open fire. Morale began to plummet among the ordinary American soldiers as Japanese shells continued to impact around the fort. Corporal William Wilson, operating a searchlight that night, noted a general feeling amongst the other ranks of ‘here we’re fired on, why can’t we fire back?’24