It is believed that during the Second World War, the territory of the United States proper was not subjected to raids by Japanese aircraft. However, this is not quite true! In the Land of the Rising Sun, there was one pilot who, in retaliation for the massive bombing of Japan by the Americans, bombed directly into the territory of the United States.
After the famous 9/11 incident, when Arab terrorists sent their hijacked airliners to the towers of the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon, the United States began to talk that their country was not ready to repel an air attack. At the same time, the Yankees for some reason forgot about the tragedy at Pearl Harbor and about the unusual events of 1942.
And in the fall of that year, the population of the states located in the "Wild West" was unpleasantly surprised to find out on the radio and from newspapers about fires breaking out in different places. It was wartime, and reporters blamed German and Japanese saboteurs as the culprits. And then something completely incomprehensible happened - the fires continued to occur, and the reports about them disappeared. It was only after World War II that what was actually happening in the States then became known.
It all began in December 1941 on the Japanese submarine I-25, which was on a military campaign off the coast of the United States. In a conversation with Lieutenant Tsukuda, the pilot of the onboard seaplane Nabuo Fujita noted that it would be nice if the submarines equipped with aircraft would approach the United States, launch seaplanes into the water, and the pilots on them would attack naval bases, ships and coastal structures. The aircraft carriers sent on such a mission with the Yankee ships guarding them will surely find and try to do everything so that the attack attempt does not go unpunished, and the boats could approach the coast covertly.
After returning, the report written by Fujita and Tsukuda went to the authorities, and soon the pilot was summoned to the headquarters. There he presented his plan to senior officers. By the way, they have already received similar offers from naval aviators. The idea was approved, and the execution was entrusted to Fujita himself, who, having flown 4 thousand hours, was considered sufficiently experienced and suitable for such a risky] southern enterprise. Only the bombing was not the bases and industrial enterprises, but the forests of Oregon. As Fujita explained, the two 76 kg high-explosive bombs that his plane can lift will not damage ships and factories, and the extensive forest fires caused by them will cause panic that will engulf enemy cities.
On August 15, 1942, the I-25 left the base in Yokosuka on a regular campaign and on September 1 approached Oregon. On September 9, the ship's commander, Captain 3rd Rank M. Tagami summoned Fujita to the conning tower and ordered him to look through the periscope at the coast.
The I-25 surfaced, the seaplane was removed from the hangar and placed on a catapult. Fujita and Observer Okuda donned overalls, climbed into the cockpit, and were soon in the air. Fujita headed for the Cape Blanco lighthouse, crossed the coastline and headed northeast. “The sun was already gilding the clouds when, having flown 50 miles (about 100 km.), I ordered Okuda to drop the first bomb, and after 5-6 miles the second one,” Fujita recalled. - A bright flame marked the explosions of our bombs, and smoke was already streaming from the place of the fall of the first. Four months ago, US aviation bombed my land for the first time, now I bombed their territory."
Descending to 100 m, Fujita flew to the ocean. Noticing two ships, he pressed against the water so that they would not see his identification marks, red circles on the wings. Having found the I-25, the seaplane splashed down, and the pilots reported to Tagami about the flight and ships. He decided to attack them, but enemy aircraft appeared, and he had to urgently dive. "Fortune again turned out to be merciful to us, all day long we heard the explosions of depth charges and the noises of destroyers sent to hunt for us," continued Fujita, "but all this happened in the distance, and the explosions did not affect the boat."
On the night of September 28, Tagami surfaced, the plane was prepared, and Fujita again went to visit the United States. Guided by the compass and working, despite the wartime, the lighthouse at Cape Blanco, he crossed the coastal strip and headed inland. Let us again give the floor to the Japanese pilot: “After flying for half an hour, we dropped the second pair of 76-kg bombs, leaving two centers of fire on the ground. The return turned out to be alarming: we reached the rendezvous point with the boat, we did not find the I-25. Maybe she was already sunk, or maybe Tagami was forced to leave. Fortunately, circling over the ocean, the pilots noticed rainbow spots on its surface, most likely traces of the submarine diesel fuel. Flying from one spot to another, they finally saw the I-25. A few minutes later the seaplane was in the hangar, and Fujita reported to the commander about the adventures.
There were still two "lighters" left, and the pilots were eager for the next flight, on Tagami headed for Japan. Having sunk two tankers, he believed that the command of the US Pacific Fleet had already sent anti-submarine ships and aircraft in search of the Japanese submarine, so you should not linger in the waters controlled by the enemy. At the end of October, I-25 moored in Yokosuka.
And the air offensive on the United States continued - seemingly unreasonable fires broke out in the states of Washington and California, and wherever fire sabotage was meaningless - in deserted places, mountains and deserts. To them, unsurprisingly, the Japanese pilots no longer had anything to do with them. It turns out that the fires were the result of the Fu-Go operation, started by Lieutenant General Kusaba. By his order, 10 thousand balloons were launched from the Japanese islands towards the United States. They were picked up by streams of air rushing from west to east at altitudes S - 12 thousand meters. Each ball carried a high-explosive incendiary bomb weighing 100 kg, which was dropped by a clockwork set for a certain time (range) of flight. While the US radio and press reported where strange fires occurred, Kusaba could correct the launches of flying saboteurs, but the US special services thought of this and ordered to stop talking and writing about "fiery hell", and the Japanese had to release balloons at random. Therefore, they flew wherever they pleased, for example, to Mexico and Alaska, and one even skidded near Khabarovsk. The territory of the United States has reached about 900 balls, that is, approximately 10% of the total number of launched.
The fates of the participants in the I-25 "bomber" campaign developed in different ways. The submarine itself, already with a different commander, was tracked down by the US destroyer Taylor off the Solomon Islands on June 12, 1943 and sunk by its depth charges. After the war, Japan was left without a navy, and M. Tagami became the captain of a merchant ship. Fujita visited Brookings, Oregon in 1962, apologized to the old-timers for the troubles he had caused in 1942, and handed over money to buy books about Japan. In response, the city council declared him an honorary citizen. And on November 27, 1999, the Japanese media reported the death of an 84-year-old pilot - the only one who managed to bomb the United States …
Underwater Raiders
N. Fujita conceived air attacks on the United States as a response to the bombing of Japanese territory by their aviation. However, the aggressors were still his compatriots. On December 7, 1941, almost two hundred aircraft that took off from the aircraft carriers of the Imperial Navy, without declaring war, attacked the US Navy base at Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands. At the same time, five midget submarines tried to enter its harbor. The operation was a success - Japanese pilots sank four battleships, a minelayer, a self-propelled target of a former battleship and damaged three cruisers, the same number of destroyers and a seaplane dispatcher, destroyed 92 naval and 96 army combat aircraft, killed 2117 sailors, 194 army soldiers and 57 civilians. The Japanese lost 29 bombers, torpedo bombers and fighters and five midget submarines.
The United States decided to take revenge and arrange a demonstration raid on Japan. On April 18, 1942, 16 B-25 Mitchell army bombers of Lieutenant Colonel D. Doolittle took off from the aircraft carrier Horvet, 700 miles from the Land of the Rising Sun, each carrying 2.5 tons of bombs. They were thrown into the neighborhoods of Tokyo, shipbuilding, military, oil refineries, power plants in the capital, Kobe, Osaka and Nagoya. Since the army pilots did not know how to land on aircraft carriers, then, "unloading", they headed west to land in areas of China unoccupied by the Japanese. Five cars got there, one landed near Khabarovsk, on non-belligerent land in the Far East of the Soviet Union. The rest, having used up fuel and due to damage, fell into the Sea of Japan, eight pilots who had jumped with parachutes over Japan were beheaded by the valiant samurai.
So in terms of size and results, the operation undertaken by Fujita and Tagami cannot be compared with the American raid on Tokyo. By the way, if the US residents knew who the arsonists were, their hatred of "japam", as they disparagingly called the Japanese, would only increase.
In general, the idea of attacking enemy territory from submarines was correct - this is what modern submarine missile carriers are designed for, but it was carried out with insignificant forces and weak means. However, there were no others then.
In the First World War, air transport showed themselves well, from which seaplanes, reconnaissance aircraft and bombers were launched, and after the flight they were lifted aboard. In the 20s. In England, the USA, France and Japan, they began to build aircraft carriers, from a spacious take-off and landing deck of which aircraft with a wheeled chassis took off, catapults were installed on battleships and cruisers to launch reconnaissance and artillery fire spotters seaplanes.
We tried to "register" aviation and submarines. Next to the fencing of the conning tower, a hangar with a sealed door was arranged, in which a seaplane with folded wings was kept, a catapult was arranged on the upper deck to accelerate its takeoff. After splashdown next to the boat, the aircraft was lifted by a crane, the wings were folded and put into the hangar. Such was the British M-2, which was turned into an aircraft carrier in 1927, and the next year it did not return to base. As found by the divers who found it, the catastrophe occurred due to the hangar door not tightly closed by the crew, through which the boat was flooded by sea water.
One seaplane was placed on other submarines. In 1920-1924. in the USA, on ships of type C, then on three types of "Barracuda" with a displacement of 2000/2500 tons, in 1931, on the Italian "Ettori Fieramosca" (1340/1805 tons) and the Japanese I-5 (1953/2000 tons). The French acted differently in 1929 with the submarine "Surkuf" (2880/4368 t), which should have defended their convoys and attacked strangers. The airborne reconnaissance seaplane was supposed to direct the enemy's "Surkuf", armed with 14 torpedo tubes and two POWERFUL 203 mm guns. Later, the Japanese equipped another three dozen submarines with one or two aircraft, including the aforementioned I-25.
Note that the boat-based aircraft were light reconnaissance aircraft - large ones on submarines did not fit.
But during the Second World War, the submariners abandoned aerial reconnaissance. When preparing onboard seaplanes for flight and taking on board, the ship had to remain on the surface, exposing itself to enemy attacks. And then the need for them disappeared, because more effective radars appeared.
As for the Fu-Go operation, launching thousands of uncontrollable balls with the expectation of a favorable wind was like firing from a machine gun with closed eyes - maybe something will disappear somewhere …
However, the United States took advantage of the Japanese experience in the 60s, launching balloons with photos and other reconnaissance equipment into the airspace of the USSR. Some of them landed here, and the "payload" went to Soviet specialists, many shot down fighters, many after long wanderings by the will of the winds disappeared or removed the wrong thing. Therefore, the United States began to send reconnaissance aircraft to the territory of the Soviet Union, and, but after the scandal with the U-2, they were forced to abandon this method of obtaining specific information.
As for the Japanese, in 1942 they conceived a strategic operation that promised to result in substantial material losses for the United States and would deprive them of the opportunity to maneuver the forces of the fleet between the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic. It was about a massive strike on the Panama Canal, which was supposed to be inflicted by 10 bombers and torpedo bombers launched from submarines of a huge displacement of 3930 tons at that time - 122 m long. Each carried a 140-mm cannon, ten anti-aircraft guns of 25 mm caliber, eight torpedo devices, a hangar for three aircraft and a catapult. The fuel reserve was provided for overcoming about 40 thousand miles.
By December 1944, the head I-400 was ready, the I-401 and 402 were being completed. In addition to them, in January and February 1945, two aircraft were placed on the I-13 and I-14, a captain of the 3rd rank was appointed commander of the strike group Arizumi. To train the pilots, they built mock-ups of the Panama Kapal locks - they were going to drop at least six torpedoes and four bombs on the real ones.
But the war ended, on June 16, aircraft from US aircraft carriers sank I-13, and on August 16, Emperor Hirohito ordered the armed forces to cease hostilities. Arizumi shot himself.
I-400 and I-401 became US trophies, and the unfinished I-402 was converted into a tanker.
A mysterious episode of the war in the Pacific is connected with the I-25 bombing campaign. Referring to the words of Tagami, another Japanese submariner, M. Hashimoto wrote that when returning home "at the beginning of October I-25, with only one torpedo, attacked and sank an American submarine."
It happened west of San Francisco. And the US naval officer E. Beach, who fought on submarines, in the preface to the translation of Hashimoto's book, argued that "Tagami was wrong in time, it would be more correct to say that he sank the American submarine at the end of July." He was referring to the Grunion, which last contacted the base on July 30, when it was in a position north of the Aleutian Islands. And Tagami could hardly be mistaken for more than two months, telling Hashimoto about the campaign immediately after his return.
In 1942, it was decided to reinforce the warring Northern Fleet with the ships of the Pacific. The surface ships went through the Northern Sea Route, and the underwater ones through the Pacific Ocean, the Panama Canal, the Atlantic, around Scandinavia to the Polar. On October 11, from the L-15 underwater minelayer, they saw a column of water and smoke fly up over the head of the L-16, and the boat disappeared under water. With the L-15, they noticed the periscope and managed to fire at it. San Francisco was 820 miles away. One can hardly speak of malice. Tagami did not know about the transition of Soviet submarines, which, of course, was kept secret, and our submarines had the misfortune to resemble American, type C …
