Attacks on North America during World War II
by the Axis Powers
were rare, mainly due to the
from the central theaters of
in Europe and Asia. This article includes attacks on
continental territory (extending 200 miles [370 km] into the
ocean) which is today under the sovereignty of the United States, Canada and Mexico, but
excludes military action involving the Danish territory of Greenland.
not an attack on North America, the December 7, 1941 Japanese
preemptive attack on
Pearl Harbor which drew the United States into World War II was the precursor to a number of
Japanese assaults on the North American mainland.
time, Hawaii was a United States
and not a state; the Territory of Hawaii
did not obtain
statehood until 1959.
States mainland was first shelled by the Axis on February 23, 1942 when
the Japanese submarine
I-17 attacked the Ellwood Oil Field west of Goleta, near Santa Barbara, California.
Although only a pumphouse and catwalk at
one oil well were damaged, I-17 captain
Nishino Kozo radioed Tokyo that he
had left Santa Barbara in flames. No casualties were reported and
the total cost of the damage was officially estimated at
approximately $500–1,000. However, news of the shelling triggered
an invasion scare
the West Coast.
Dutch Harbor air raid
carrier-based aircraft launched two raids on the US military base
Harbor, Alaska, on the night of June 3-4, 1942, as part of
its diversion in the Aleutians during the Battle of
Midway campaign, killing 78 US servicemen, with a loss of
The raid provided the impetus for the
construction of the Alaska Highway
The US forces were able to salvage a crashed Japanese Zero
, giving the Americans valuable
Battle of the Aleutian Islands
On June 3,
1942 the Aleutian
Islands, running southwest from mainland Alaska, were
invaded by Japanese forces.
the Japanese military
, however, the United States military knew the invasion was
forthcoming, but chose not to expend large amounts of effort
defending the islands. Although most of the civilian population had
been moved to camps on the Alaska Panhandle, some Americans were captured and taken to Japan as
prisoners of war.
became known as the Battle of the Aleutian
Islands, American forces engaged the Japanese on Attu Island and regained control by the end of May 1943, after
taking significant casualties in difficult terrain in which
hundreds died. A large invasion force, mainly US, but
including many Canadian troops, assaulted Kiska Island on August 7, 1943, but the Japanese had already
withdrawn, undetected, ten days earlier.
Although Alaska was a U.S. territory and not yet a state (statehood
was not granted until 1959) it was part of the North American
continent. This battle also marks the only time since the War of 1812
that U.S. territory in North America
has been occupied by a foreign power.
response to the United States' success at the Battle of
Midway, the invasion alert for San Francisco was canceled on June 8, 1942.
Estevan Point lighthouse attack
20, 1942, the Japanese submarine I-26, under the command of
Yokota Minoru, fired 25-30 rounds of 5.5" shells at the Estevan Point lighthouse on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, but failed to hit its target.
the first enemy shelling of Canadian soil since the War of 1812
. Though no casualties were reported,
the subsequent decision to turn off the lights of outer stations
was disastrous for shipping activity.
Fort Stevens attack
became the only attack on a mainland American military installation
during World War II, the Japanese submarine I-25, under the command of
Tagami Meiji, surfaced near the mouth of the Columbia River, Oregon on the night
of June 21 and June 22, 1942, and fired shells toward Fort
The only damage officially recorded was to
a baseball field
's backstop. Probably the
most significant damage was a shell that damaged some large phone
cables. The Fort Stevens gunners were refused permission to return
fire, since it would have helped the Japanese locate their target
more accurately. American aircraft on training flights spotted the
submarine, which was subsequently attacked by a US bomber, but it
Lookout Air Raid
The Lookout Air Raid occurred on September 9, 1942. The first and only
aerial bombing of mainland America by a
foreign power occurred when an attempt to start a forest fire was made by a Japanese Yokosuka E14Y1 seaplane dropping two incendiary bombs over Mount Emily, near Brookings, Oregon.
seaplane, piloted by Nobuo Fujita
been launched from the Japanese submarine aircraft carrier
significant damage was officially reported following the attack,
nor after a repeat attempt on September 29.
Between November 1944 and April 1945, Japan launched over 9,000
fire balloons toward North America. Carried by the
recently-discovered Pacific jet stream
they were to sail over the Pacific Ocean and land in North America,
where the Japanese hoped they would start forest fires and cause
other damage. About three hundred were reported as reaching North
America, but little damage was caused. Six people (five
children and a woman) became the only deaths due to enemy action to
occur on mainland America during World War II when one of the
children tampered with a bomb from the balloon near Bly, Oregon in the
United States and it exploded. Recently released
reports by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canadian military indicate that fire
balloons reached as far inland as Saskatchewan.
A fire balloon is also considered to be a
possible cause of the final fire in the Tillamook Burn
. One member of the 555th
Parachute Infantry Battalion
died while responding to a fire in
the Northwest August 6, 1945; other casualties of the 555th were
two fractures and 20 other injuries.
German landings in the United States
Duquesne Spy Ring
Even before the war, a large Nazi spy ring was found operating in
the United States. The Duquesne Spy Ring
is still the
largest espionage case in United States history that ended in
convictions. The 33 German agents that formed the Duquesne spy ring
were placed in key jobs in the United States to get information
that could be used in the event of war and to carry out acts of
sabotage: one person opened a restaurant and used his position to
get information from his customers; another person worked on an
airline so that he could report allied ships that were crossing the
Atlantic Ocean; others in the ring worked as delivery persons so
that they could deliver secret messages alongside normal messages.
was led by Captain Fritz Joubert
Duquesne, a colorful South African Boer who spied for Germany
in both World Wars and is best known as "The man who killed
he was awarded the Iron Cross for his key
role in the sabotage and sinking of HMS
Hampshire in 1916. William G. Sebold,
a double agent for the United States,
was a major factor in the FBI's successful
resolution of this case.
For nearly two years, Sebold ran a
radio station in New York for the ring, giving the FBI valuable
information on what Germany was sending to its spies in the United
States while also controlling the information that was being
transmitted to Germany. On June 29, 1941, the FBI closed in. All 33
spies were arrested, found guilty, and sentenced to serve a total
of over 300 years in prison.
When the United States entered World War II, Adolf Hitler
ordered the remaining German
to wreak havoc on the country.
The responsibility for carrying this out was given to German
). In June 1942
, eight agents were recruited and divided into two
teams: the first, commanded by George
, with Ernst Peter
, Heinrich Heinck and Richard Quirin. The second, under
the command of Edward Kerling, with Hermann Neubauer, Werner Thiel
and Herbert Haupt.
12, 1942, U-Boat U-202 landed
Dasch's team with explosives and plans at East
Island, New York.
Their mission was to destroy
power plants at Niagara Falls and three Aluminum Company of America
) factories in Illinois, Tennessee and
New York. However, Dasch decided to turn himself in to the FBI,
providing them with a complete account of the planned mission,
which led to the arrest of the complete team.
team landed from U-584 at Ponte Vedra Beach (25 miles [40 km]
south-east of Jacksonville, Florida), on June 17. They were tasked with
laying mines in four areas: the Pennsylvania Railroad in Newark
NJ., canal sluices in both St. Louis and Cincinnati,
and New York City's water supply pipes. The team made their
way to Cincinnati,
Ohio and split up, with two going to Chicago,
Illinois and the others to New York.
Dasch confession led to the arrest of all of the men by July
All eight were tried, convicted by the Military Commission with six
men sentenced to death. President Roosevelt approved the sentences.
The constitutionality of the military commissions was upheld by the
Supreme Court in Ex parte Quirin
six of the eight men were executed by electrocution on August 8.
Dasch and Burger were given thirty-year prison sentences. Both were
released in 1948 and deported to Germany. Dasch (aka George Davis),
who had been a longtime American resident prior to the war,
suffered a difficult life in Germany after his return from U.S.
custody due to his cooperation with U.S. authorities. As a
condition of his deportation, he was not permitted to return to the
United States, even though he spent many years writing letters to
prominent American authorities (J. Edgar Hoover, President
Eisenhower, etc.) requesting permission to return. He eventually
fled to Switzerland and wrote a book, titled Eight Spies
In 1944 there was another attempt at infiltration, codenamed
("Magpie"). Elster involved Erich Gimpel
and German American defector
. Their mission
objective was to gather intelligence on the Manhattan Project
and attempt sabotage if
possible. The pair sailed from Kiel on U-1230 and landed at Hancock Point, Maine on November
Both made their way to New York, but the operation
degenerated into total failure. Colepaugh turned himself in to the
FBI on December 26, confessing the whole plan; Gimpel was arrested
four days later in New York. Both men were sentenced to death but
eventually had their sentences commuted. Gimpel spent 10 years
in prison; Colepaugh was released in 1960 and operated a business
in King of
Prussia, Pennsylvania before retiring to Florida.
German landings in Canada
St. Martins, New Brunswick
At about the same time as the Dasch operation (on April 25.
solitary Abwehr agent (Marius A Langbein) was
landed by U-boat (possibly U-217) near St. Martins,
New Brunswick, Canada. His mission was to observe and report
shipping movements at Halifax, Nova Scotia (the main departure port for North
Langbein changed his mind, however, and
moved to Ottawa where he lived off his Abwehr funds, before
surrendering to the Canadian authorities in December 1944.
New Carlisle, Quebec
November, the U-518 sank two iron ore freighters and damaged
another off Bell
Island in Conception Bay, Newfoundland, en route to the
Peninsula where, despite an attack by a Royal Canadian Air Force aircraft,
it successfully landed a spy, Werner von Janowski, at New
Carlisle, Quebec on November 9, 1942.
He was soon apprehended
after Earl Annett Jr., manager of the New Carlisle Hotel, at which
Janowski was staying, became suspicious and alerted authorities to
a stranger using obsolete currency at the hotel bar. The R.C.M.P. arrested Janowski on a CNR passenger train headed for
Inspection of Janowski's personal effects
upon his arrest revealed that he was carrying a powerful radio
transmitter, among other things. Janowski later spent some time
posing as a double agent, sending false messages to the Abwehr in
Germany. The effectiveness and honesty of his "turn" is a matter of
Weather Station Kurt
weather reporting was important to the sea war and on September 18,
1943, U-537 sailed
from Kiel, via
with a meteorological team led by Professor Kurt
Sommermeyer. They landed at Martin Bay near the northern
tip of Labrador on October 22, 1943 and
successfully set up an automatic weather station ("Weather
Station Kurt" or "Wetter-Funkgerät Land-26"), despite
the constant risk of Allied air patrols.
The station was
powered by batteries which were were expected to last about three
months. At the beginning of July 1944, U-867
to replace the equipment, but was sunk en route. The weather station
remained undisturbed by the locals till the 1980s and is now at the
Planned Italian assault
Italian Royal Navy (Regia Marina) planned an attack on
harbor by elements of the 10th Light Flotilla (Decima Flottiglia MAS).
The attack was planned for December 1942, but it was delayed for
many reasons and was never carried out.
German U-Boat operations
The Atlantic Ocean was a major strategic battle zone (Second Battle of the
) and when Germany declared war on the U.S., the
East Coast of the United
offered easy pickings for German U-Boats
(referred to as the Second Happy Time
). After a highly
successful foray by five Type
long-range U-boats, the offensive was maximized by the use
of short-range Type VII
U-boats, with increased fuel stores, replenished from supply U-boats
(milk cows). From February to May 1942, 348
ships were sunk, for the loss of 2 U-boats during April and May.
naval commanders were reluctant to introduce the convoy system that
had protected trans-Atlantic shipping and, without coastal blackouts, shipping was silhouetted
against the bright lights of American towns and cities such as
City until a dim-out
was ordered in May.
The cumulative effect of this campaign was severe; a quarter of all
wartime sinkings – 3.1 million tons. There were several reasons for
this. The naval commander, Admiral Ernest
, was averse to taking British recommendations to introduce
convoys, U.S. Coast Guard and Navy patrols were predictable and
could be avoided by U-boats, poor inter-service co-operation, and
the U.S. Navy did not possess enough suitable escort vessels
(British and Canadian warships were transferred to the U.S. east
ships were torpedoed within sight of East Coast cities such as
New York and Boston; indeed,
some civilians sat on beaches and watched
battles between U.S. and German ships. The only documented
World War II sinking of a U-boat close to New England shores
occurred on May 5, 1945, when the U-853 torpedoed and sank the collier Black Point off Newport,
When the Black Point
was hit, the
U.S. Navy immediately chased down the sub and began dropping
. The next day, when an
and floating debris appeared,
they confirmed that the U-853 and its entire crew had been
destroyed. In recent years, the U-853 has become a popular dive
intact hull, with open hatches, is located in 130 feet of water off
Island, Rhode Island. A wreck discovered in
1991 off the New Jersey coast was concluded in 1997 to be that of
U-869. Previously, U-869 had been thought to have
been sunk off Rabat, Morocco.
Gulf of Mexico
convoys and air cover were introduced in the Atlantic, sinking
numbers were reduced and the U-boats shifted to attack shipping in
the Gulf of
During 1942 and 1943, more than 20 U-boats
operated in the Gulf of Mexico. They attacked tankers transporting
oil from ports in Texas and Louisiana, successfully sinking 56
vessels. By the end of 1943, the U-boat attacks diminished as the
merchant ships began to travel in armed convoys.
instance, the tanker Virginia
was torpedoed in the mouth of the Mississippi River by the German U-Boat
U-507 on May 12, 1942, killing 26 crewmen.
were 14 survivors. Again, when defensive measures were introduced,
ship sinkings decreased and U-boat sinkings increased.
was the only U-boat sunk in the Gulf of
Mexico during the war. Once thought to have been sunk by a torpedo
dropped from a U.S. Coast Guard Utility Amphibian J4F aircraft
on August 1, 1942, U-166 is now
believed to have been sunk two days earlier by depth charges from
the Robert E. Lee
’s naval escort, the U.S. Navy
. It is thought that
the J4F aircraft may have spotted and attacked another German
submarine, U-171, which was
operating in the area at the same time.
U-166 lies in 5,000
feet of water within a mile of her last victim, the passenger ship
SS Robert E. Lee
From the start of the war in 1939 until VE Day, several of Canada's
Atlantic coast ports became important to the resupply effort for
the United Kingdom and later for the Allied land offensive on the
Western Front. Halifax and Sydney, Nova
Scotia became the primary convoy assembly ports, with
Halifax being assigned the fast or priority convoys (largely troops
and essential materiel) with the more modern merchant ships, while
Sydney was given slow convoys which conveyed bulkier materiel on
older and more vulnerable merchant ships.
Both ports were
heavily fortified with shore radar emplacements, search light
batteries, and extensive coastal artillery stations all manned by
RCN and Canadian Army regular and reserve personnel. Military
intelligence agents enforced strict blackouts throughout the areas
and anti-torpedo nets were in place at the harbour entrances.
Despite the fact that no landings of German personnel took place
near these ports, there were frequent attacks by U-boats on convoys
departing for Europe. Less extensively used, but no less
important, was the port of Saint John which also saw war matériel funnelled through the port, largely
after the United States entered the war in December 1941 and the
Canadian Pacific Railway
mainline from central Canada (which crossed the state of Maine) could be
used to transport in aid of the war effort.
not crippling to the Canadian war effort, given the country's rail
network to the east coast ports, but possibly more destructive to
the morale of the Canadian public, was the Battle of the St. Lawrence, when
U-boats began to attack domestic coastal shipping along Canada's
east coast in the St. Lawrence River and Gulf of St. Lawrence from early 1942 through to the end of the shipping
season in late 1944.
significant attacks took place in 1942 when German U-boats attacked
four iron ore carriers serving the DOSCO iron mine at
Wabana on Bell
Island in Newfoundland's Conception
The ships S.S. Saganaga
S.S. Lord Strathcona
were sunk by U-513
September 5, 1942, while the S.S. Rosecastle and P.L.M 27
were sunk by U-518 on
November 2 with the loss of 69 lives.
However, one of the
most dramatic incidents of the attack occurred after the sinkings
when the submarine fired a torpedo that missed its target, the 3000
ton collier Anna T
, and struck the DOSCO loading pier and
exploded. As a result of the torpedo missing its
Island became the only location in North America to be
subject to direct attack by German forces during World War
II. On October 14, 1942, the Newfoundland
Railway ferry SS
Caribou was torpedoed by the German U-boat
U-69 and sunk in the Cabot Strait south of Port aux Basques. Caribou
was carrying 45 crew and
206 civilian and military passengers. 137 lost their lives, many of
submarines shelled a Standard Oil
refinery on Dutch-owned Aruba on
February 16, 1942, causing no damage.
sub shelled the island of Mona, some 40 miles from Puerto
Rico, on March 2.
No damage or casualties
refinery on Curaçao was shelled on April 19.
not an attack on Mexican territory, the sinking of the Mexican
tanker Faja de
El Potrero de Llano by
the German U-boat, U-160, on May 21, 1942 off Key West, prompted the entry of Mexico into World War II,
against Germany, Japan and Italy.
Mexico and Brazil were the
only Latin American countries to send troops to fight overseas
against Germany and Japan.
The Battle of Los Angeles
In an incident now known as The Battle of Los Angeles
U.S. Army fired several
thousand anti-aircraft shells into the
air over Los
Angeles, California during the night of February 24-25, 1942 at two
Flying Objects, in which none of the targets were intercepted
or damaged at all.
The target was later officially
determined to be a lost weather
The San Francisco Bay Area on alert
and June 1942, the San Francisco Bay Area underwent a series of alerts:
Radio silence orders
On June 2, 1942, a nine-minute air-raid alert, including at 9:22 pm
a radio silence
order applied to all
from Mexico to
- Young, Donald J. Phantom Japanese Raid on Los Angeles Word War
II Magazine, September issue 2003
- (from internet archive)
- Essex, James W. 2004. Victory in the St. Lawrence: the
unknown u-boat war. Erin, Ontario: Boston Mills Press
- The Planned Attack of the 10th Light Flotilla
Against New York
- Dobbs, Michael. Saboteurs: The Nazi Raid on America
ISBN 0-375-41470-3 (2004)
- Duffy, J.P. TARGET: AMERICA, Hitler's Plan to Attack the United
States, Praeger Publishers; PB: The Lyons Press (A Booklist review)
- Gimpel, Erich. Agent 146: The True Story of a Nazi Spy in
America ISBN 0-312-30797-7 (2003)
- Griehl, Manfred. Luftwaffe over America: The Secret Plans
to Bomb the United States in World War II ISBN 1-85367-608-X
- Mikesh, Robert C. Japan's World War II Balloon Bomb Attacks
on North America, Smithsonian Institution Press, (1973)
- Webber, Bert. Silent Siege: Japanese Attacks Against North
America in World War II, Ye Galleon Press, Fairfield,
Washington (1984). ISBN 0-87770-315-9 (hardcover). ISBN