Prior to 911 only 1 person successfully bombed US. WW II a Japanese man bombed American soil. Need more info!

Question

During WWII a Japanese soldier was part of a team that dissasembled an airplane and put it into a sub. They hide off the west coast of the US. Each night they went ashore and re-assembled the plane and dropped bombs. Anyone have any info one where this happened or who this man was?

Answer 1

Hawaii (Pear Harbor) and Alaska (the Aleutian Island attack just prior to Midway) were both bombed by the Japanese. They weren't states at the time, but were definitely part of the US. These weren't bombings by individuals, but by a nation. As for individual attacks, many people have bombed the US. Timothy McVeigh's name comes prominently to mind.

Answer 2

Tom Hanks must have a different history book than the rest of us. The US bombed, with Britain, the way from the French coast to Berlin during WW2. The Japanese, got bombed later, only because the US was not close enough to bomb them until later in the war once aircraft where built to fly that far. The A-bomb, was not used in Germany, because they surrendered prior to one being available for use. If one had been available, I would think it may have been used in Germany. As for racism, yes, we where, and yes they where. He forgets the bodies of Filipinos tied to posts and used as sword or bayonet practice. How about the surrendered troops that got beheaded, or used as slave labor without food, or medicine. Guess he forgets those issues. We, did imprison our own citizens, if they where of Japanese descent. At least many of those lived long enough to get the US apology and a pay check, many US soldiers are still waiting the same from the Japanese government.

Answer 3

The Japanese bombed Dutch Harbor, (Unalaska) Alaska on June 3, 1942. It was American soil. The Japanese also invaded Attu, Kiska American territory in the western Aleutian Islands of Alaska.

Answer 4

The Japanese launched some 9000 balloon bombs against the US during the war. The bombs were meant to start forest fires and cause explosions, hopefully causing chaos and confusion in the US west. They were a reprisal for the Doolittle raid on Tokyo, sort of an “if you bomb our country we'll bomb yours” type of thing.

Out of some 9000 launched only about 1,000 actually made it to the US and Canada, and of those there was one case of six people being killed by the bomb carried by the balloon.

At dawn on 9 September 1942, the Japanese submarine I-25 (2,198 tons) under Frigate Captain Meija Tagami, lay off the coast of the state of Oregon. Inside the repair hangar was a Yokosuka E14Y1 seaplane. The pilot, N. Fujita, one of the youngest Japanese naval officers, pressed his eye to the periscope lens "I looked out on the coast of Oregon where the mountains were still wreathed in mist and recognized Cape Blanco with its lighthouse. The stormy seas of the past ten days had grown calm again, and there was a cloudless sky. "Captain," I said, "it looks good. I think we can carry out our operation today." "Fine!" Tagami replied. "In a couple of minutes you'll make history: you'll be the first man ever to bomb the United States of America."'

The raid on the USA had been N. Fujita's idea. His proposal to make the raid with a plane based on a submarine, reached Admiral Yamamoto some time in the summer of 1942, just after Yamamoto received a report from the ex-Japanese consul in Seattle advising that the best and simplest way to spread panic among the enemy was to set fire to the abundant forests along the US west coast. Now the young naval flier was about to turn his idea into reality.

"'After putting on my flying suit I made my last-minute preparations. I put a couple of locks of my hair, some finger-nail clippings and my will into a small wooden box. In case I did not return from the mission, these "remains" would be delivered to my wife. Now everything was ready, my observer Okuda was inside the plane and the catapult was lit. We zoomed over the Cape Blanco lighthouse toward the coast and then turned northeast toward the target zone. The sun bathed the eastern sky in red-gold light. When we had travelled about 42 miles, I ordered Okuda to drop the first bomb over the huge forests. We flew another 9 miles eastward and let loose the second bomb. When we reached Cape Blanco again, we veered southwest. Suddenly I saw two freighters. We flew directly over the water's surface to avoid detection. A couple of minutes later we were concealed by the skyline. Only then did we veer off to look for our submarine. Soon we were back on board."...

On 29 September 1942, J. Fujita took off for a second bombing raid on the forests of Oregon, this time at night. He struck at the same spot as the first time, 50 miles west of Cape Blanco. This was the last bombing raid made on the USA to this day: Fujita could not make a third sortie, because the sea became too rough for him to take off.

Best wishes.

Answer 5

IThere were balloon bombs manufatured by Japan and those bombs killed some people on the west coast, and started a few fires, I have never heard of the rumor that you presented, but the balloon bombs did happen.

Answer 6

The attacks were in Oregon, the pilots name was Fujita, I knew his great-nephew when I was in the Navy. They didn't have to go ashore to launch, that particular class of Japanese sub was actually designed to launch the plane from at sea. As to that being the only case, what would you call Pearl Harbor?

Answer 7

Sorry to correct you but the Japanese blasted the hell out of our Naval base at Pearl Harbor which the last time I checked was still in Hawaii and was and still is one of the 50 states. There were a couple hundred Japanese involved in that attack.

Answer 8

Never heard of this, they did however send numerous balloon bombs over and a teacher and several school kids were killed in either Washington state or Oregon.

Answer 9

I'm not sure about that, but you are right Japan did bomb us, but with balloons. They set off a large balloons in japan and two or three actually made and detonated and did kill a couple of civilians.

Answer 10

I'm not sure anything about this. But many have bombed the US prior to 911.