Bombardment of Fort Stevens | |||||||
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Part of the American theater and the Pacific Theater of World War II | |||||||
American servicemen inspecting a shell crater after the Japanese attack on Fort Stevens. | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
United States | Japan | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Carl S. Doney | Akiji Tagami | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
Land: 2 artillery pieces 1 fort Air: 1 aircraft | 1 submarine | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
Minor damage | None |
The Bombardment of Fort Stevens occurred in June 1942, in the American Theater and the Pacific Theater of World War II. The Imperial Japanese submarine I-25 fired on Fort Stevens, which defended the Oregon side of the Columbia River's Pacific entrance.
The Imperial Japanese Navy submarine I-25, commanded by Akiji Tagami, had been assigned to sink enemy shipping and attack the enemy on land with its 14 cm deck gun. Transporting a Yokosuka E14Y seaplane, the submarine was manned by a crew of 97. [1] On 21 June 1942, I-25 had entered U.S. coastal waters, following fishing boats to avoid the mine fields in the area.
Late that night, Commander Tagami ordered his crew to surface his submarine at the mouth of the Columbia River. His target was Fort Stevens, which dated to the American Civil War and was armed with more or less obsolete Endicott era artillery, including 12 in (305 mm) mortars and several 10 in (254 mm) and 6 in (152 mm) disappearing guns. [2]
Tagami ordered the deck gun crew to open fire on Fort Stevens' Battery Russell. Surprisingly, his shots were harmless, in part because the fort's commander, Colonel Carl S. Doney, [3] ordered an immediate blackout. Doney also refused to permit his men to return fire, which would have revealed their position. Spotting the enemy gun flashes with a depression position finder indicated the submarine was out of range. [4]
Most Japanese rounds landed in a nearby baseball field or a swamp, although one landed close to Battery Russell and another next to a concrete pillbox. One round damaged several large telephone cables, the only real damage that Tagami caused. A total of seventeen explosive shells were fired at the fort. [5]
United States Army Air Forces planes on a training mission spotted the I-25 and called in her location for an A-29 Hudson bomber to attack. The bomber found the target, but the I-25 successfully dodged the falling bombs and submerged undamaged. [6]
Even though there were no injuries and very little damage, the Japanese attack on Fort Stevens along with the Aleutian Islands Campaign the same month helped create the 1942 full-scale West Coast invasion scare. Thereafter, rolls of barbed wire would be strung from Point Adams, near the mouth of the Columbia River, southward in case of an invasion. The wrecked British barque Peter Iredale was entangled in the wire and would remain so until the war's end.
The Fort Stevens shelling marked the only time that a military base in the contiguous United States was attacked by the Axis Powers during World War II, [7] and was the second time a continental U.S. military base was attacked by an enemy since the bombing of Dutch Harbor two weeks earlier.
Fort Mills was the location of US Major General George F. Moore's headquarters for the Philippine Department's Harbor Defenses of Manila and Subic Bays in early World War II, and was the largest seacoast fort in the Philippines. Most of this Coast Artillery Corps fort was built 1904–1910 by the United States Army Corps of Engineers as part of the Taft program of seacoast defense. The fort was named for Brigadier General Samuel Meyers Mills Jr., Chief of Artillery 1905–1906. It was the primary location of the Battle of Corregidor in the Japanese invasion of the Philippines in 1941–42, and of the recapture of Corregidor in February 1945, both in World War II.
Naval gunfire support (NGFS), also known as naval surface fire support (NSFS), or shore bombardment, is the use of naval artillery to provide fire support for amphibious assault and other troops operating within their range. NGFS is one of several disciplines encompassed by the term naval fires. Modern naval gunfire support is one of the three main components of amphibious warfare assault operations support, along with aircraft and ship-launched land-attack missiles. Shipborne guns have been used against shore defences since medieval naval warfare.
I-25 (イ-25) was a B1 type (I-15-class) submarine of the Imperial Japanese Navy that served in World War II, took part in the Attack on Pearl Harbor, and was the only Axis submarine to carry out aerial bombing on the continental United States in World War II, during the so-called Lookout Air Raids, and the shelling of Fort Stevens, both attacks occurring in the state of Oregon.
Fort Stevens was an American military installation that guarded the mouth of the Columbia River in the state of Oregon. Built near the end of the American Civil War, it was named for Civil War general and former Washington Territory governor, Isaac I. Stevens. The fort was an active military reservation from 1863–1947. It is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Coastal artillery is the branch of the armed forces concerned with operating anti-ship artillery or fixed gun batteries in coastal fortifications. In modern times, coastal artillery has generally been replaced with anti-ship missiles, such as the Ukrainian R-360 Neptune.
The American Theater was a theater of operations during World War II including all continental American territory, and extending 200 miles (320 km) into the ocean.
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Peter Iredale was a four-masted steel barque that ran ashore October 25, 1906, on the Oregon coast en route to the Columbia River. She was abandoned on Clatsop Spit near Fort Stevens in Warrenton about four miles (6 km) south of the Columbia River channel. Wreckage is still visible, making it a popular tourist attraction as one of the most accessible shipwrecks of the Graveyard of the Pacific.
The Lookout Air Raids were minor but historic Japanese air raids that occurred in the mountains of Oregon, several miles outside Brookings during World War II.
Estevan Point Lighthouse is located on the headland of the same name in the Hesquiat Peninsula Provincial Park on the west coast of Vancouver Island, Canada.
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I-17 was a Japanese B1 type submarine of the Imperial Japanese Navy which saw service during World War II. This long-range submarine cruiser spent the early months of the war in the eastern Pacific and was the first Axis ship to shell the continental United States. She later supported the Imperial Japanese Army in fighting around the Solomon Islands and remained active in the southwest Pacific until she was sunk in August 1943.
A deck gun is a type of naval artillery mounted on the deck of a submarine. Most submarine deck guns were open, with or without a shield; however, a few larger submarines placed these guns in a turret.
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SS Fort Camosun was a coal-burning 7000-ton freighter, built in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada in 1942. In June of 1942, during World War II, she departed Victoria Harbour on her maiden voyage to England with zinc, lead, plywood, timber and other raw materials. On 20 June 1942 the Japanese submarine I-25, under the command of Commander Akiji Tagami, torpedoed the Fort Camosun while she was 70 miles south-southwest of Cape Flattery, just eleven hours out of port, at 11:00pm. The torpedo hit the number two hold on the port side. The crew abandoned ship into the remaining good lifeboats. The submarine then surfaced and used deck guns to fire 18 shells at the Fort Camosun causing further damage to the ship. While badly damaged, the Fort Camosun did not sink, as she was loaded with plywood, timber and other floatable cargo. The crew radioed for help and later an American Flying Fortress located the crew. Later in the day HMCS Edmundston rescued the 31 crew of the sinking Fort Camosun. The Fort Camosun was towed to safety by HMCS Quesnel to Neah Bay. The Fort Camosun was low in the water and was towed with the help of the tugboat Henry Foss from Tacoma, US Navy tug USS Tatnuck and the tugboat Salvage Queen. Fort Camosun reached Neah Bay, later she was towed to Esquimalt B.C. At Esquimalt she was put in dry dock and temporary repairs were made. Fort Camosun repaired took timber to England, via Guantanamo and New York. On the way to England an U-boat attacked her convoy in the Atlantic. As she was passing through the North Channel alone a German aircraft tried to bomb her, but the bomb landed clear of the ship. Later she survived another torpedo attack in the Gulf of Aden.
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