JAPANESE SUB SHELLS U.S. WEST COAST

Santa Barbara, California · February 23, 1942

Japanese submarines initiated the first shore bom­bard­ments of the war with an attack on the U.S. Navy base at John­ston Island in the Paci­fic in mid-Decem­ber 1941, just days after Japa­nese carrier-based planes had de­stroyed, in their sur­prise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, one‑half of the United States’ naval power. Japa­nese sub­marines briefly shelled the Amer­i­can Paci­fic outpost on Mid­way Island in Janu­ary 1942. The following month, on this date, Febru­ary 23, 1942, Japa­nese sub­marine I17 made the first enemy attack on the U.S. main­land since the War of 1812. Shortly after 7 p.m., the I17 sur­faced several hun­dred yards/­meters off a beach west of Santa Bar­bara, Califor­nia, and for the next 20 minutes fired 17 or 25 rounds (sources vary) from her 140‑mm/­5.5‑inch deck gun at the Rich­field (now ARCO) avia­tion fuel stor­age tanks on a bluff behind the beach. The shots badly missed the tanks but destroyed an oil derrick and damaged a pier and a pump house. News of the Ell­wood oil field shelling trig­gered an inva­sion scare up and down the West Coast.

Two nights later trigger-happy U.S. Army anti-aircraft bat­teries ex­ploded into action over the blacked-out city of Los Angeles. During a 30‑minute fusil­lade, guns hurled 1,440 rounds of 3‑inch and 37‑mm am­mu­ni­tion into the search­light-swept night sky. About 10 tons of shrap­nel and dud shells fell back on the city of 1.5 mil­lion people, damaging resi­dences, ship­yards, and air­craft plants where late-night shifts were at work. Eight people died that night, three of heart attacks, the others in acci­dents related to the black­out. At a press con­fer­ence shortly after­ward, Sec­re­tary of the Navy Frank Knox called the in­ci­dent, known in con­tem­porary media as “The Battle of Los Angeles” or “The Great Los Angeles Air Raid,” a “false alarm” stemming from “war nerves.”

Not every­one bought the govern­ment’s assur­ances. The Long Beach [California] Inde­pen­dent edi­tori­alized: “There is a mys­terious reti­cence about the whole affair and it appears that some form of cen­sor­ship is trying to halt dis­cus­sion on the matter.” Others spec­u­lated that the in­ci­dent was either staged or exag­gerated to give defense in­dus­tries like Douglas (now Boeing) Air­craft in Long Beach and nearby Santa Monica an ex­cuse to move further in­land. (Secre­tary Knox encouraged their moving.) The Great Los Angeles Air Raid was front-page news and fodder for news­paper edi­tors around the nation. Truth was, as it turned out, during 1941 and 1942 the I‑17 was one of 10 Japa­nese sub­marines that routinely patrolled off the Paci­fic West Coast, Alaska, and Baja California.

Japanese Sub I-17 Brought War and Pandemonium to the U.S. Mainland. More Japanese Subs Were on Their Way to the West Coast

L.A. Times article on Battle of Los Angeles

Above: The February 26, 1942, Los Angeles Times edition covered the “Battle of Los Angeles” and its after­math. Times headlines screamed: “ARMY SAYS ALARM REAL.” In a front-page edi­torial the news­paper stated that “con­sider­able public con­fu­sion and excite­ment” had been caused by the air raid alert. In some of the most imag­i­na­tive reporting of the war, articles described shrap­nel-strewn areas of the city, pro­perty damage, and people finding unex­ploded ordi­nance. The rival Los Angeles Exam­iner described “shrap­nel-strewn” neigh­bor­hoods that “took on the appear­ance of a huge Easter-egg hunt [as] young­sters and grown­ups alike scrambled through streets and vacant lots, picking up and proudly com­paring chunks of shrap­nel frag­ments.” The Army roped off the en­tire streets, placing large signs at both ends warning “UNEX­PLODED BOMB.” There were no un­ex­ploded bombs—at least from Japa­nese air­craft—not­with­standing Sec­re­tary of War Henry L. Stim­son’s public asser­tion that 15 enemy planes had over­flown the city the previous night, possi­bly launched from secret Japa­nese air­fields or sub­marines, and the Examiner’s spurious claim that three planes had been shot down over the ocean. After the war Japa­nese officials denied sending planes over Los Angeles on the night of the “Great Los Angeles Air Raid.”

I-400-class Japanese subAichi M6A1 Seiran seaplane

Left: The mammoth Sen-toku, or I-400-class submarine. Difficult though it is, note the long tube-like plane hangar on the sub’s aft deck and the forward catapult. Japanese plans called for building a fleet of 18 I‑400class submarines, at 400 ft/­122 m long and displacing 6,670 tons, by far the largest and among the most deadly subs ever built until the 1960s. The subs were designed as under­water air­craft carriers, each equipped with 3 Aichi M6A1 sea­plane bombers. Their mis­sion was to travel more than halfway around the world (the I‑400 had a range of over 30,000 nau­ti­cal miles/­55,560 kilometers), sur­face off the North Amer­i­can or Panamanian coast, and launch their deadly air attack. Only 3 Sen-tokus were com­pleted; two entered service without seeing combat.

Right: A 2-man Aichi M6A1 Seiran seaplane, the type carried aboard I‑400‑class subs. The brain­child of Commander-in-Chief of the Com­bined Fleet Adm. Isoroku Yama­moto, the archi­tect of the Japa­nese naval attack on Pearl Harbor, the I‑400‑class sub­marine was designed to carry 2 or 3 Seirans (which trans­lates as “mist on a clear day”), each cap­able of carrying one 1,800‑lb/­816‑kg bomb or torpedo for up to 739 miles/­642 nau­tical miles. The late-war I‑400‑class class “wonder weapon” was unknown to U.S. intel­ligence, despite having broken the Japanese naval code.

Japan Sends Subs to Strike California, Oregon. Builds Aircraft-Carrying Super Submarines (Skip first 40 seconds)