The Bombardment of Fort Stevens occurred in June 1942, in the American Theater and the Pacific Theater of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. The Imperial Japanese submarine ''I-25'' fired on Fort Stevens, which defended the

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

side of the Columbia River's

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...

entrance.

Bombardment

The

Imperial Japanese Navy The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrender ...

submarine , 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 The Yokosuka E14Y ( Allied reporting name Glen) was an Imperial Japanese Navy reconnaissance seaplane transported aboard and launched from Japanese submarine aircraft carriers such as the during World War II. The Japanese Navy designation was ...

seaplane A seaplane is a powered fixed-wing aircraft capable of taking off and landing (alighting) on water.Gunston, "The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary", 2009. Seaplanes are usually divided into two categories based on their technological characteri ...

, the submarine was manned by a crew of 97. 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 Commander (commonly abbreviated as Cmdr.) is a common naval officer rank. Commander is also used as a rank or title in other formal organizations, including several police forces. In several countries this naval rank is termed frigate captain. ...

Tagami ordered his crew to surface his submarine at the mouth of the

Columbia River The Columbia River ( Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia ...

. His target was Fort Stevens, which dated to the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...

and was armed with more or less obsolete Endicott era artillery, including mortars and several and

disappearing gun A disappearing gun, a gun mounted on a ''disappearing carriage'', is an obsolete type of artillery which enabled a gun to hide from direct fire and observation. The overwhelming majority of carriage designs enabled the gun to rotate back ...

s. 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 ordered an immediate blackout. The commander 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 The depression range finder (DRF) was a fire control device used to observe the target's range and bearing to calculate firing solutions when gun laying in coastal artillery. It was the main component of a vertical base rangefinding system. ...

indicated the submarine was out of range. Most Japanese rounds landed in a nearby

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

field or a

swamp A swamp is a forested wetland.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in ...

, although one landed close to Battery Russell and another next to a concrete

pillbox Pillbox may refer to: * Pill organizer, a container for medicine * Pillbox hat, a woman's hat with a flat crown, straight upright sides, and no brim * Pillbox (military) A pillbox is a type of blockhouse, or concrete dug-in guard-post, norm ...

. One round damaged several large

telephone A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into e ...

cables, the only real damage that Tagami caused. A total of seventeen explosive shells were fired at the fort.

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

planes on a training mission spotted the I-25 and called in her location for an

A-29 Hudson The Lockheed Hudson is a light bomber and coastal reconnaissance aircraft built by the American Lockheed Aircraft Corporation. It was initially put into service by the Royal Air Force shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War and prim ...

bomber to attack. The bomber found the target, but the I-25 successfully dodged the falling bombs and submerged undamaged.

Aftermath

Peter Iredale Black and White (7057124727)

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 A close-up view of a barbed wire Roll of modern agricultural barbed wire Barbed wire, also known as barb wire, is a type of steel fencing wire constructed with sharp edges or points arranged at intervals along the strands. Its primary use is ...

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 ''Peter Iredale'' was a four-masted steel barque sailing vessel 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) s ...

'' 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 A military base is a facility directly owned and operated by or for the military or one of its branches that shelters military equipment and personnel, and facilitates training and operations. A military base always provides accommodations for ...

in the

contiguous United States The contiguous United States (officially the conterminous United States) consists of the 48 adjoining U.S. states and the Federal District of the United States of America. The term excludes the only two non-contiguous states, Alaska and Hawaii ...

was attacked by the

Axis Powers The Axis powers, ; it, Potenze dell'Asse ; ja, 枢軸国 ''Sūjikukoku'', group=nb originally called the Rome–Berlin Axis, was a military coalition that initiated World War II and fought against the Allies. Its principal members were ...

during World War II,Webberp.59 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.

References

Notes

Bibliography

* *
''Aviation History'' article

''Fort Stevens'', The Coast Defense Study Group, Inc. Retrieved 2019-05-15.

''Fort Stevens State Park'', Oregon Parks and Recreation Department. Retrieved 2019-05-15.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fort Stevens, Bombardment of Conflicts in 1942 Naval battles of World War II involving Japan Naval battles of World War II involving the United States Clatsop County, Oregon History of Oregon Fort Stevens American Theater of World War II Battles and conflicts without fatalities 1942 in Oregon June 1942 events Attacks on military installations in the 1940s

Bombardment

Aftermath

See also

References

Notes

Bibliography