What Happened to the Only Pilot Who Bombed America?

On 9 September 1942, the Japanese submarine I-25 surfaced off the coast of Oregon. Its crew assembled a small Yokosuka E14Y floatplane that had been folded up inside a watertight hangar on the deck, and Warrant Officer Nobuo Fujita, with his observer Okuda Shoji, flew inland with two incendiary bombs. The target was the forest near the town of Brookings: Japan hoped to start a huge wildfire on American soil. But rain the night before had soaked the woods, a fire lookout spotted the smoke, and the small fire was put out. A second raid three weeks later went unnoticed. These "Lookout Air Raids" are the only time an enemy airplane bombed the mainland United States. After the war Fujita ran a hardware store in Japan. In 1962 the Brookings Junior Chamber of Commerce invited him to the town's Azalea Festival. Not everyone agreed: the local paper ran a full-page statement against the visit, signed by more than a hundred residents, and the trip only went ahead after Japan was assured he would not be arrested as a war criminal. Fujita brought his family's 400-year-old samurai sword, planning to use it on himself if things went badly. Instead the town welcomed him, and he gave the sword to Brookings as a pledge of peace and friendship. He returned several times, paid for Brookings students to visit Japan, planted a tree at the bomb site in 1992, and was made an honorary citizen shortly before he died in 1997. The sword is on display in the Brookings library. Sources: "Nobuo Fujita" and "Lookout Air Raids", English Wikipedia; Sandboxx, "Nobuo Fujita: the only Japanese pilot to bomb mainland America during WWII"; OPB Curious Northwest, "Nobuo Fujita, Brookings, Oregon"; Atlas Obscura, "Nobuo Fujita's Sword"; The National Interest, "Nobuo Fujita: The Story of the Only Japanese Pilot to Bomb America During WWII". #history #ww2 #japan #shorts