Operation Storm: Japan's Top Secret Submarines and Its Plan to Change the Course of World War II (10 page)

Fujita smoothed out the message from the Naval General Staff and read it one more time to make sure he understood it correctly:

Fujita wasn’t one to get involved in the politics at Naval Headquarters; he was more comfortable in a cockpit than a conference room. He assumed he’d be told why he was wanted once he appeared, but that offered little consolation. In the meantime, all he could do was worry.

T
HE MINISTRY WAS
located in Kasumigaseki, the central part of Tokyo, where government offices were found. A well-polished plaque at its entrance indicated that the Naval General Staff
shared the imposing edifice with the Navy Ministry, though relations between the two were sometimes strained. The four-story red brick building was surrounded by a tall iron fence and capped by a mansard roof, its Western influence clearly on display. It was also in the perfect location—only a block or so from the large wooded compound where the emperor resided.

Fujita took the morning train from Yokosuka for the hour-long ride to Tokyo. Even though he wore his best dress whites, it was hard not to be intimidated by the senior officers who walked the hallways.
⁹
His orders were to report to Cdr. Shojiro Iura, NGS, First Division. When he found the third-floor office, he entered the high-ceilinged room, came to attention, and called out:

“Warrant Officer Fujita, sir. Chief flying officer of
I-25
!”

“Thank you for coming,” Commander Iura said, returning his salute.

At that moment another door opened, and a man wearing a commander’s uniform walked in. He was instantly recognizable, especially since Fujita had seen his picture in the newspaper many times. It was the emperor’s younger brother, Prince Nobuhito Takamatsu.

Fujita certainly hadn’t expected to be meeting with someone as important as the emperor’s brother. He felt so flustered, all he could do was come to attention again and repeat his name. Prince Takamatsu was gracious enough to overlook Fujita’s nervousness. He had plenty of experience putting people at ease; a warrant flying officer was no problem.

The third son of Emperor Taisho, Prince Takamatsu had made a career of the Imperial Japanese Navy. He’d graduated from Etajima, served aboard a battleship, and attended torpedo, aviation, and gunnery schools.
¹⁰
After graduating from the Naval War College in 1936, he held various positions in the NGS, which was one reason, royal blood aside, the prince felt comfortable in the building. His presence also meant that whatever they wanted to discuss was far more important than Fujita had guessed.

History is unclear how many men were in the room that day. Besides Fujita, Commander Iura, and Prince Takamatsu, there
may have been others. If there were, they didn’t include Cdr. Tatsunosuke Ariizumi, the submarine staff officer destined to command the
I-400
squadron. Ariizumi had moved out of the NGS to a new assignment a few months earlier. Commander Iura was his replacement.

The presence of the emperor’s brother required the most formal language possible. Rife as it was with honorifics, it was easy to make a mistake. It’s safe to say Fujita kept his words to a minimum. After executing his lowest bow, Fujita was led to a table where several maps were spread out.

“We captured these at Wake Island,” Iura explained. “They should prove useful.”
¹¹

Fujita studied the topmost map. When he realized it showed the west coast of the United States, he couldn’t believe his eyes. But what Iura said next surprised him even more.

“Fujita, you’re going to bomb the American mainland.”

Fujita was stunned. Bomb America? Which cities? San Francisco? Los Angeles? His mind raced with possibilities. This was big. But what Iura said next stunned him even more.

“You will bomb forests for us. Right about here.” Iura pointed to an area just north of the California-Oregon border.
¹²

Fujita was incredulous. Bomb forests? Why did they want to do that? Not only did it seem a waste of time, they didn’t need a pilot of his caliber to fell lumber. A junior pilot would have done just as well.

Fujita couldn’t hide his disappointment even from this august group, but at least he knew why they were meeting. It was to discuss an idea submitted almost seven months ago, an idea Fujita knew all about. Why did a junior officer in the IJN know about the first aerial bombing of the American mainland? Because Fujita had suggested the idea himself.

F
UJITA HAD FIRST
got the idea of turning a reconnaissance floatplane into an offensive weapon after the attack on Pearl Harbor. It was December 10, and the
I-25
had just received a position report
on the USS
Enterprise
. The carrier was too far away for the
I-25
to catch it submerged, so Captain Tagami surfaced and pursued the flattop at flank speed. During the chase,
Enterprise
planes spotted the
I-25
and bombed the sub before she got close enough to attack. Tagami was forced under, and when he resurfaced, the
Enterprise
was gone. This started Fujita thinking.

Not long afterward the
I-25
received orders to attack a U.S. “transport fleet.” Unfortunately, the fleet was too far away to reach in time.
¹³
This made Fujita ponder all the more.

Finally, on December 21, the
I-25
was ordered to attack a U.S. battle group that was soon to exit the Panama Canal.
^*
On her way to intercepting the warships, the sub was spotted by an American destroyer and depth-charged so badly, Fujita and the crew barely escaped.

These experiences convinced Fujita that if sub-borne planes had the ability to drop bombs, they could attack targets that their subs couldn’t reach. In the best case, a plane might sink an enemy ship or at least stop an attacking destroyer. Even if that wasn’t possible, they might distract a ship long enough that subs like the
I-25
could catch up and finish the job.
¹⁴

The more Fujita thought about it, the more benefit he saw to sub-borne planes acting as offensive weapons, and he soon found an advocate when he discussed his idea with the
I-25
’s executive officer.

“If our planes were armed with bombs, I could search far ahead of the submarine,” Fujita explained. “I could not only locate enemy ships for the
I-25
but join in attacks to sink them.”
¹⁵

Lt. Tatsuo Tsukudo was enthusiastic. “You ought to put your ideas in writing and forward them to the high command, Fujita.”
¹⁶
This made Fujita laugh. Would Etajima graduates really listen to a farmboy?
¹⁷

As the
I-25
headed toward Kwajalein, Fujita and Tsukudo continued to discuss the idea. They realized sub-borne planes could
be used to attack both enemy ships and coastal targets such as aircraft factories and naval bases. They even discussed bombing the Panama Canal.
¹⁸

As much as Tsukudo supported the idea, Fujita was reluctant to commit anything to paper. Still, Tsukudo believed Fujita was on to something, and insisted he write it down.
¹⁹
By the time they arrived at Kwajalein, Fujita had written a letter describing how to use a sub-borne plane as a weapon. When Captain Tagami read it, he appended his endorsement.

Tsukudo promised to forward Fujita’s proposal to Sixth Fleet command. Fujita doubted anything would come of it though. Incredibly, someone had read his proposal, because now Fujita was meeting with the Naval General Staff, the most senior group responsible for Sixth Fleet planning and operations. And he wasn’t just meeting the NGS’s senior submarine staff officer—he was meeting the emperor’s brother as well.

Fujita no longer wondered how he’d got there; still he was confounded by what they wanted him to do. Bomb forests in America? Why waste bombs on trees? It would be far better to bomb a major city like San Francisco. And if they chose to attack a west coast naval base like San Diego, it would really make a statement. But bombing trees was ridiculous!

Fujita’s disappointment made for an awkward moment until Iura explained his thinking.

“The northwestern United States is full of forests. Once a blaze gets started deep in the woods it is very difficult to stop. Sometimes whole towns are destroyed. If we were to bomb some of these forests it would cause the enemy much trouble. It might even create large-scale panic once residents knew Japan could reach out and bomb their factories and homes from 5,000 miles away.”
²⁰

Fujita listened thoughtfully. It made sense when explained this way. A forest fire could be a force multiplier, causing more destruction than one or two bombs. Still, it was an odd assignment. It seemed typical that a low-level officer would recommend Los Angeles as a bombing target, and the NGS would somehow turn it
into trees. What happened to staff officers’ brains once they were promoted past frontline duty? They seemed to forget what it was like and come up with all sorts of crazy plans.

But Fujita was a noncommissioned officer; he knew what orders meant. If he had any reservations, he kept them to himself. After all, the orders came from the emperor’s brother. And there was nothing wrong with being the first pilot to bomb America.

The best part of the plan was that an attack on the mainland might force a redeployment of the Pacific Fleet. If Japan could get America to tie up vital warships, defending the west coast rather than using them in the Pacific against Japan, it would be a significant benefit to the empire.
²¹
Plus, Fujita had his own reasons for wanting to punish the United States. Three months before, the
I-25
had been berthed in Yokosuka next to the light carrier
Ryuho
.
²²
When one of James Doolittle’s B-25s dropped a bomb through the flattop’s flight deck, many of the carrier’s crew had been killed. The attack marked the first U.S. bombing of the Japanese mainland. It would give Fujita great satisfaction to return the favor.
²³

In fact, Doolittle’s April raid accelerated a lot of things. Not only did it make the NGS more desirous of finding ways to attack the U.S. mainland, it increased the pace of their talks with Aichi about building the
I-400
’s special attack plane.
²⁴
In retrospect, the two enemies seem to have been engaged in a tit-for-tat exchange. I shell Ellwood; you bomb Tokyo; I start forest fires in Oregon; you shell the emperor’s summer palace. Both sides were struggling for psychological advantage. In Japan’s case, there was an important strategic reason for striking the United States: the sooner America was forced into peace negotiations, the better. If the lack of certain weaponry stood in the way of shortening the war, then the IJN would build it. That’s why the
I-400
construction program was under way.

Fujita and Captain Tagami were selected for the mission because their operational record was outstanding. The
I-25
had sunk a number of ships during her first west coast patrol, and Fujita had successfully conducted dangerous scouting missions over Australia and New Zealand. Additionally, Tagami was considered
an aggressive skipper and had endorsed Fujita’s idea. They were a natural choice to carry out the mission.

The plan was simple. Three missions dropping two incendiary bombs each would be made against three different locations in the dense forests of Oregon and northern California. Armed with a wind-spun propeller, each bomb contained 512 pellets that burned at 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
²⁵
The bombs were small (weighing only 167 pounds each) because the
I-25
’s floatplane couldn’t carry a large payload. What they lacked in size, however, they made up in firepower. Given the tinder-dry conditions of the Pacific Northwest in September, it would be more than enough to get a conflagration started.

The more Fujita listened, the more credible the plan sounded. The next few days proved difficult though. Just as Nambu hadn’t been able to tell his family about the Pearl Harbor attack, Fujita couldn’t tell his wife about his mission. Whenever he looked at their son, his heart sank thinking he might never see him again. It wasn’t that Fujita lacked confidence. He knew his skills were strong. But surely some Yankee fighter would shoot his lumbering plane out of the sky.
²⁶
He would just have to drop his bombs before that happened. Still, it hurt to think he’d never see his son again.

T
HREE WEEKS LATER
Fujita sat on his bunk cleaning his sidearm. It was four o’clock on the morning of September 9, 1942, and the
I-25
was submerged off Oregon waiting for the weather to clear.
²⁷

Life on board a sub could be monotonous. Unlike a submarine’s crew, pilots didn’t have regular duties. Other than checking on his plane to make sure it received proper maintenance, there wasn’t much for him to do. He’d gotten to know the
I-25
’s crew and liked many of them. Of course, Fujita stayed out of their way when they were working, and to his credit, he wasn’t averse to pitching in. He certainly didn’t consider himself better than the enlisted men, though the same couldn’t be said for most IJN officers.

It’s a bit surprising that the crew felt an attachment to Fujita, especially because his domain was the sky. A pilot’s job is very
different from a submariner’s. Submariners work as a team, while a reconnaissance pilot flies alone (save for an observer), relying solely upon his skills for survival. Many sub crews looked up to their pilots as heroes. When they didn’t return, it was a terrible loss.

Fujita must have felt restless waiting for the skies to clear. He tried to focus on the mission, but thoughts of his family probably intruded. Though it might seem odd to clean his gun at four in the morning
²⁸
it helped take his mind off the waiting.