The History of Target America

Search the archive for more information on attacks on America during World War II

The Pearl Harbor air raid in 1941 is certainly the most well known attack on American holdings during World War II. The other attacks made on American soil by the Axis powers have often been overlooked, in large part to their utter lack of effectiveness. However, these attacks can tell us a lot about the fear that pervaded American society during World War II.

The first attack on American soil after the events at Pearl Harbor came in early 1942 when a Japanese submarine surfaced off the coast of California and fired more than 20 5-inch shells in the vicinity of the Bankline Oil Refinery near Ellwood, California. The attack was fairly unsuccessful, causing only minimal damage and no casualties. Two days later, anti-aircraft guns in Los Angeles, California, fired several thousand shots into the skies over Santa Monica, California. The event turned out to be a false alarm, but several people died during the blackout due to unrelated causes. The German navy was also actively sinking ships off the coast of America throughout the war, downing 15 vessels by early 1942. These U-Boat attacks would account for one-quarter of all ship sinkings in the war.

The only ground assault in the Americas came in June of 1942 when the Japanese army and navy invaded the Aleutian Islands off the coast of Alaska. The Japanese army managed to occupy the island for nearly one year, finally withdrawing in May of 1943. The Battle of the Aleutian Islands was an attempt to divert attention from Japanese movement in the Pacific, unfortunately for the Japanese, it was not successful.

The Germans also made their only attempt at a ground attack in June of 1942, landing two teams of saboteurs on the east coast of the US – one in New York and the other in Florida. The two teams had orders to destroy power plants and manufacturing facilities from New York to Tennessee. Their plans were dashed when the leader of one of the teams, John Dasch, turned himself into the FBI, leading to the quick capture of the rest of the German saboteurs.

The Japanese navy continued to attempt assaults on the west coast of the United States through the end of the war and these later attacks caused the only war related fatalities in the United States. In one instance, a Japanese submarine fired at Fort Stevens on the coast of Oregon, causing damage to a fence on a nearby baseball diamond. The Japanese also dropped bombs, carried by a small seaplane and large balloons, into the forests of Oregon in an attempt to start forest fires that would require significant allocation of resources to fight. These attempts were also unsuccessful. Although, the Japanese "fire balloons" did take the lives of six people when one exploded as a child tried to retrieve it from a tree.

While majority of the attacks made by the Axis powers on American soil were utter failures, these assaults did cause heightened tension on the west coast of America, which was within the range of the Japanese navy. Fortunately, the damage caused by these attacks was very minimal and played no significant role in the outcome of World War II.