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

by Mark Felton

  Kure Naval District Force

  – Assorted older submarines

  The Force assisted the 7th Squadron in homeland defence and conducted submarine training.

  Appendix 2

  The Japanese Balloon Bomb Campaign

  against the United States

  The Japanese High Command acknowledged that although the Fujita Plan’s overall objective was sound, and both floatplane sorties made by Chief Warrant Officer Fujita had led to the successful delivery of munitions to the United States mainland, the results were negligible. A massive effort was required to transport one very small aircraft across the Pacific onboard a valuable submarine, to drop a tiny amount of bombs onto no specific target. At best it would have proved a propaganda coup had the United States authorities realized that Japan had successfully attacked the American mainland, but very little media coverage emerged. Another munitions delivery system was required, and this time the Japanese decided upon an unmanned and ultra-cheap option: the paper balloon.

  Once again, the Japanese required the initial utilization of their submarine force to attack the United States, and in 1943 200 balloons were prepared, and designed to be launched from two modified submarines, the I-34 and I-35. Each balloon had a twenty-foot envelope, and a range of more than 600 miles. Although the operation was fully prepared by August 1943, the Imperial Navy realized that employing submarines on such missions would not have been a sensible use of their potential, especially as the war had long since begun to deteriorate for Japan. The project was shelved, and the navy dropped balloon bomb research. The Imperial Japanese Army, however, continued development instead. The army lacked the means to launch balloons from a mid-point between Japan and the United States, so the new weapons had to be designed to depart from the Japanese homeland itself.

  The army balloon-bomb project was codenamed ‘Fugo’ (Windship Weapon), and the army designers at the 9th Military Technical Research Institute under Major General Sueyoshi Kusaba, in cooperation with scientists of the Central Meteorological Observatory in Tokyo, produced a balloon design that they designated the Type-A (not to be confused with the navy’s Type-A midget submarine), made of sixty-four laminated mulberry tree paper gores (the sections forming the curved surface of the balloon). This was glued together with a form of potato paste forming a balloon envelope with a 100-foot circumference. The envelope was then filled with 19,000 cubic feet of hydrogen to provide the necessary high ceiling the weapon required. Below the envelope was suspended a woven dural ring with the bombs and thirty-six ballast sandbags attached, controlled by three aneroid barometers and a C (small) battery mounted on a platform above which controlled a circuit to maintain altitude, and release the bombs. Each balloon carried a payload of two 11-pound thermalite incendiary bombs, and one 33-pound anti-personnel fragmentation bomb. The Japanese called the new weapon fusen bakudan or fire bombs. Launch sites were located on the east coast of the main Japanese island of Honshu, at Otsu, Ichinomiryu and Nakaso.

  Once released, the balloons were uncontrollable, and carried to the North American continent at the behest of high altitude wind currents, cruising in the jet stream at around 20–40,000 feet. To maintain altitude, sand was automatically released from the ballast bags if the balloon began to sink. In the daytime the balloon would cruise at its maximum altitude, but at night the envelope would collect dew and sink as it became progressively heavier. The altimeter would cause a set of blow plugs to fire, releasing some of the sandbag ballast, thereby restoring the balloon’s altitude. When all the sand was gone the bombs would become the final ballast, and they were released automatically – an event calculated to occur over the mainland of the United States. Finally, a picric acid block would explode, destroying the balloon gondola; with a fuse being lit that was connected to a charge on the balloon itself. The resultant mixture of hydrogen, air and explosives would cause the balloon envelope to burn up as a large orange fireball. The balloons were extremely difficult to spot from the ground, because they cruised at such a high altitude, and most American fighter aircraft of the period could not reach them.

  The first balloon launch occurred on 3 November 1944, with a US Navy patrol boat discovering a balloon floating in the sea sixty-six miles off San Pedro, California on 5 November. The first known successful attack on the United States occurred on 6 December 1944, bombs being dropped around twelve miles south-west of Owl Creek Mountain, close to Thermopolis, Wyoming. Fragments of balloon envelopes and gondolas were discovered in Alaska and Montana, and forensic tests confirmed the wreckage to be of Japanese origin. The question was how were the Japanese delivering the weapons to the United States?

  The people of the United States were not informed of the attacks, and the media was ordered not to report this alarming development. The United States also developed counter-measures to deal with this unique threat, codenamed ‘Operation Firefly.’ The US 4th Air Force gathered fighter squadrons to shoot down the balloons before they could release their payloads, and many were downed over the Aleutian Islands before they could reach their targets as they sank to lower altitudes. One was shot down over Oregon. There was a fear among the American authorities that the Japanese could have used the balloons to deliver chemical and biological warfare agents to the United States, and to counter any such threat stocks of decontamination chemicals were quietly distributed to the western states, and farmers were asked to report any strange crop markings or animal infections that occurred. Although the United States authorities played down the potential damage that balloon bombs could have wreaked, Lyle Watts of the Agricultural Department commenting in June 1945 that, ‘…the forest service was “less worried about this Japanese balloon attack than we are with matches and smokes in the hands of good Americans hiking and camping in the woods”.’ A US Army unit, 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion (nicknamed the ‘Triple Nickle’ because of their unit number) was trained to act as fire jumpers should the incendiary bombs set the forests ablaze.

  Of the 9,300 balloons launched from Japan, only 212 were confirmed as having arrived in the United States and Mexico, landing as far east in the United States as Michigan, and a further seventy-three were confirmed as coming down in Canada. The only fatalities caused by the balloon bombs occurred on 5 May 1945, on Gearhart Mountain, near Bly, Oregon. A picnicking party of one adult and five children were tragically killed instantly when they dragged an unexploded Imperial Japanese Navy 15-kg anti-personnel bomb out of the woods. These six people are the only known fatalities caused by enemy action on mainland United States during the Second World War. It is not known whether any of the balloon bombs started forest fires, as was intended.

  In April 1945, the Japanese ceased their balloon launches, largely because of the American media blackout that had told them nothing about the success or failure of the campaign. What remains certain, however, is the fact that many of the bombs remain unaccounted for, and after over sixty years of deterioration could pose a serious risk to anyone who discovered one of these strange relics in the American countryside today.

  Appendix 3

  A Japanese Landing in Australia

  For all the panic among the civilian population of Australia concerning a Japanese invasion in mid-1942, the Japanese never intended to carry out such an operation. Only on one occasion late in the war did Japanese troops come ashore in Australia.

  By January 1944 Japanese naval intelligence suspected that the United States was constructing a new naval base at Admiralty Gulf on the north-western shores of Western Australia. The navy made a request to the closest military forces to Western Australia to conduct a reconnaissance to confirm or deny their suspicions. Based on Ambon Island, the Japanese 19th Army contained a special commando-style unit called the Matsu Kikan, or Pine Tree, under the command of Captain Masayoshi Yamamoto. The Matsu Kikan contained graduates of the Army Intelligence School at Nakano in Japan, and they formed an elite reconnaissance force. Captain Yamamoto detailed one of his subordinates, Lieutenant Susuhiko Mizu
no, to put together a small team ready for insertion into Western Australia. Mizuno’s tasks were threefold: firstly, he was to investigate the possibility of effecting a landing in Australia, secondly, find a good location where a force could be put ashore, and thirdly, scout around and try to find any military establishments in the region.

  Lieutenant Mizuno’s party departed on their mission from Koepang in Timor (part of the Japanese occupied Netherlands East Indies) aboard a tiny 25-ton fishing vessel called the Hiroshi Maru on 14 January 1944. The rest of Mizuno’s team consisted of two sergeants, a superior private who would act as a radio operator, six Japanese sailors, and fifteen local Timorese disguised as fishermen. The Timorese would sail the vessel to Australia, and if any Allied aircraft or ships encountered the Hiroshi Maru their presence would hopefully deter a more thorough investigation of the boat. The first attempt to conduct the mission was a failure, however, as the tiny fishing boat was caught in a ferocious storm that forced Mizuno to scrub the operation and return to base on the morning of 15 January.

  The Japanese waited the storm out and then departed again on the evening of 16 January. Strangely, although the Japanese had already disguised their activities with the addition of the Timorese, they now took the contradictory step of providing the Hiroshi Maru with air cover for the voyage. Any Allied plane or ship that encountered a small fishing boat with its own dedicated aerial cover would arouse suspicion. 19th Army Headquarters instructed the 7th Air Division at Kendari to release an aircraft for the operation, and Staff Sergeant Aonuma found himself flying his Type 99 light bomber on circuits around the Hiroshi Maru as she motored towards Australia.

  On 16 January, as the fishing boat approached Cartier Islet, Aonuma spotted a submarine running on the surface. Undoubtedly Allied, Aonuma decided to dissuade the submarine from making a close inspection of the Hiroshi Maru, and dived in to attack. Lookouts aboard the submarine had already spotted the Japanese aircraft, and the submarine immediately crash-dived, followed under the waves by two bursts of machine-gun fire from the Type 99. As Aonuma passed over the white water, marking where the submarine had vanished, he dropped six 50kg bombs. The bombs detonated underwater, and Aonuma circled over the spot several times, later reporting that the submarine had probably been damaged.

  The Type 99 light bomber continued her mission of flying cover for the Hiroshi Maru as the vessel approached the Australian coast. A radar system monitored the airspace over the coastline, forcing the Japanese aircraft to drop down low. Flying ahead of the fishing boat, Aonuma located Cartier Islet, returning to guide the Hiroshi Maru in. The first ‘landfall’ made by the Japanese was at 9 a.m. on 17 January, when they reached East Island. The island is actually a coral reef that is exposed during low tide. Twenty-four hours later the Japanese reached Browse Island, and here Lieutenant Mizuno and his men went ashore. Browse contained nothing except a ruined watchtower, but the island did provide the Japanese force with a suitable laying-up position. Timing his mission carefully, Mizuno wanted the force to land on the mainland in the early morning of 19 January. After three hours on Browse, the Hiroshi Maru weighed anchor and sailed through the night to the mainland, entering an inlet on the coast of Western Australia at approximately 10 a.m., the first Japanese troops to land in Australia.

  A light mist concealed the Japanese landing party as they quietly collected tree branches with which to camouflage the Hiroshi Maru, then the men ate a cold breakfast before beginning their mission. Mizuno now divided his command into three parties tasked with exploring different areas of the wilderness. Mizuno commanded one, while the two sergeants, Morita and Furuhashi, each led another, and it was agreed that all parties would rendezvous back at the boat after two hours. Mizuno even had a 8mm movie camera with him to record anything of interest that was discovered.

  The Japanese were to discover nothing of any military interest, all parties reporting only finding old campfires. After a night aboard the boat Mizuno ordered another series of patrols on 20 January, but by 2 p.m., and with nothing to show for their labours, Mizuno decided to end the mission and return to Timor. The Japanese landings near Cartier and Browse Islands in Western Australia remain the only confirmed presence of enemy troops in Australia during the Second World War, though many locals and amateur historians insist that Japanese reconnaissance parties undertook several similar missions to Australia, and that Japanese submarine crews also came ashore in quiet localities for fresh water.

  Appendix 4

  German U-boat operations around

  Australia

  A single German U-boat, U-862, ventured into the Pacific Ocean and around the coast of Australia to interdict Allied shipping during the Second World War. Indeed, the commander of U-862, Lieutenant-Commander Heinrich Timm, possessed a special record when Germany surrendered in May 1945. He was the only U-boat skipper to have conducted war patrols in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans. From 1943 German submarines were based at a series of ports throughout south-east Asia, as part of an agreement between Germany and Japan. The German U-boat bases were located at Penang off Malaya, Surabaya in Java, Singapore, Batavia in the Netherlands East Indies and at the Japanese port of Kobe. Their role was two-fold, with about half conducting offensive operations into the Indian Ocean and around southern Africa, and the rest, assisted by some obsolescent Italian submarines, delivering secret cargoes of weapons and raw materials between German-occupied Europe and the Japanese sphere of operations. This was codenamed the Yanagi trade, and was of high priority to both Axis partners.

  On 3 June 1944, U-862 had departed from Norway headed for the German U-boat base at Batavia. As was usual, U-862 would conduct a war patrol on the journey to the Far East, and Timm scored some successes. He attacked and sank the 6,885-ton United States ship Robin Goodfellow on 25 July in the South Atlantic. In the Indian Ocean, U-862 scored a second kill, sinking the 3,614-ton Radbury on 13 August while the U-boat was to the south of the island of Madagascar. Timm’s successes continued as his boat sailed across the Indian Ocean towards its new Far Eastern base, and on 16 August U-862 sank the 7,037-ton Empire Lancer. Two days later U-862 struck again, sinking the 5,414-ton Nairung. Success followed success, and on 19 August he made a successful attack on the 5,068-ton British ship Wayfarer. On U-862’s arrival at Batavia on 17 September 1944 Timm was awarded the Knights Cross, Nazi Germany’s preeminent decoration for gallantry and meritorious service. However, Timm’s run of successes was not without incident. On 20 August, U-862 was in the northern section of the Mozambique Channel, beginning to nose into the Indian Ocean proper, when a Catalina anti-submarine aircraft of the RAF’s 265 Squadron, which was engaged on a transport flight from Mombasa to Durban, caught the U-boat on the surface. The Catalina was carrying an additional four RAF maintenance crew as passengers alongside the normal four aircrew complement of the aircraft, but the pilot was conducting anti-submarine surveillance on route to South Africa. As the aircraft swung in to attack the U-boat firing its nose gun, the submarine’s 37mm flak gun returned fire, scoring hits on the aircraft’s starboard engine and wing. As the aircraft closed the distance between itself and the U-boat, the 20mm flak gunners aboard U-862 pumped several rounds into the cockpit, which presumably killed or incapacitated the pilot. The Catalina crashed into the sea a mere thirty feet beyond the U-boat, leaving no survivors. U-862 emerged from the battle without so much as a scratch on her paintwork.1

  On 17 November 1944, U-862 set out from Batavia harbour on a war patrol designed to take the lone German submarine into the waters off Australia, which Timm had plied before the war while a merchant navy officer. U-862 sailed down the west coast of Australia, and then turned east. On 9 December, in broad daylight, the surfaced U-862 bombarded the 4,724-ton Greek tanker Ilissos with her 105mm deck-gun, and managed to inflict some damage. However, the tanker had aboard her a small party of armed guards manning a 4-inch gun, and with this the tanker was able to return the German’s fire. Rather than risk any damage to his submarine while so f
ar from proper repair facilities Timm submerged U-862. With the report of an enemy submarine, probably German, operating just off the Australian coast, the RAAF scrambled a fleet of aircraft to begin a search for the intruder. The Royal Australian Navy’s corvettes HMAS Lismore, Burnie and Maryborough conducted sweeps through the area in which Timm had attacked the Ilissos. Timm was unaware of the hunt then underway for his U-boat and went on to make another kill on Christmas Eve 1944, when he sank the 7,180-ton American Liberty ship Robert J Walker off Montague Island, New South Wales. Timm’s final kill of the patrol was another American Liberty ship, the 7,176-ton Peter Silvester, loaded with US Army supplies and 137 army mules, which he sank off the Australian west coast as Timm took U-862 back to Batavia on 6 February 1945. Only fifteen survivors from the Peter Silvester were plucked from the ocean on 9 February. Liberator aircraft of No. 25 Squadron, RAAF, located another fifty survivors drifting on life rafts on 12 and 13 February, and dropped rations to the survivors. The last survivors of the sinking of the Peter Silvester were not located and rescued by the American submarine USS Rock until 9 March.

  On 27 February 1945 U-862 arrived in Japanese-occupied Singapore. While at Singapore the combined 37mm and 20mm flak gunners aboard the U-boat successfully shot down a USAAF P-38 Lightning fighter-bomber during an air raid on the port in early May 1945.2

  On 3 May, Captain Kurt Freiwald, the skipper of U-181, another U-boat based in the port, addressed all German servicemen who were in Singapore, and informed them that Hitler had died in Berlin. Thereafter the Japanese interned the Germans until their own final surrender on 15 August 1945, and the Imperial Navy seized all the remaining U-boats.