Japanese Submarine Attack on Curry County (WWII)
On Wednesday morning, September 9, 1942, the Imperial
Japanese Navy submarine I-25 surfaced west of Cape Blanco and launched a small seaplane piloted by Chief Flying Officer Nobuo Fujita. Fujita flew southeast over the Oregon coast,
dropping incendiary bombs on Mount Emily, 10 miles northeast of Brookings.
After Fujita's bombing run on Mount Emily, the I-25 came
under attack by U.S. Navy patrol aircraft, forcing the submarine to seek refuge on the ocean floor off Port Orford. The American attacks were unsuccessful, and Fujita was able to launch an additional bombing sortie three weeks later. Shortly after this sortie, the submarine sank the SS Camden, the SS Larry Doheny, and the Soviet (Russian) submarine L-16.
The I-25 was one of eleven Japanese submarines configured to carry a seaplane. The aircraft provided a unique reconnaissance capability, but could also carry two bombs. Although the plane-equipped submarines were primarily intended for reconnaissance and scouting missions, they were heavily armed and capable of surface and submerged attack.
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The I-25 was the sixth boat of the I-15 class. It was built by Mitsubishi at Kobe, Japan, and completed in October 1941. The submarine was positioned off Pearl Harbor during the attack on December 7, but damage to the aircraft precluded it from conducting scouting missions for the attack.
The I-25 displaced 2,584 tons submerged, with a length of 356 feet. Its twin diesel engines and two propeller shafts were capable of providing a cruising range of over 14,000 miles. The submarine carried a crew of 97 men, including a pilot and crewman for the seaplane. Armament included 17 torpedoes and a 5.5 inch deck gun, as well as two 25mm antiaircraft guns.
The seaplane was housed in a watertight hangar forward of the conning tower. The wings and floats were removed and the horizontal stabilizer folded up to fit in the hangar. Two launch rails extended from the hangar to the bow. A compressed-air catapult launched the reassembled plane. For recovery, the
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