| American theater | |||||||
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| Part ofWorld War II | |||||||
 AUnited States Coast Guardsman on sentry duty inAlaska during World War II | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
Allies:  Free France Netherlands(from 1940) Costa Rica(from 1941) Cuba(from 1941) Dominican Republic(from 1941) El Salvador(from 1941) Guatemala(from 1941) Haiti(from 1941) Honduras(from 1941) Nicaragua(from 1941) Panama(from 1941) Brazil(from 1942) Mexico(from 1942) Bolivia(from 1943) Colombia(from 1943) Argentina(from 1945) Chile(from 1945) Ecuador(from 1945) Paraguay(from 1945) Peru(from 1945) Uruguay(from 1945) Venezuela(from 1945) | Axis: Germany Italy Japan | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
TheAmerican theater[1] was atheater of operations duringWorld War II including allcontinental American territory, and extending 200 miles (320 km) into the ocean. Owing to North and South America's geographical separation from the central theaters of conflict (inEurope,the Mediterranean and Middle East, andthe Pacific) the threat of an invasion of the continental U.S. or other areas in the Americas by theAxis powers was negligible and the theater saw relatively little conflict. Military engagements include theBattle of the River Plate,submarine attacks off the East Coast, theAleutian Islands campaign, theBattle of the St. Lawrence, and the attacks onNewfoundland. Espionage efforts includedOperation Bolívar.
The first naval battle during the war was fought on December 13, 1939, off the Atlantic coast ofSouth America. The German "pocket battleship"Admiral Graf Spee (acting as a commerce raider) encountered one of the British naval units searching for her. Composed of threeRoyal Navycruisers,HMS Exeter,Ajax, andAchilles, the unit was patrolling off theRiver Plate estuary ofArgentina andUruguay. In a bloody engagement,Admiral Graf Spee successfully repulsed the British attacks.CaptainHans Langsdorff then brought his damaged ship to shelter in neutral Uruguay for repairs. However, British intelligence successfully deceived Langsdorff into believing that a much superior British force had now gathered to wait for him, and hescuttled his ship atMontevideo to save his crew's lives before committing suicide. German combat losses were 96 killed or wounded, against 72 British sailors killed and 28 wounded. Two Royal Navy cruisers had been severely damaged.[2]
U-boat operations in the region (centered in theAtlantic Narrows betweenBrazil andWest Africa) began in autumn 1940. After negotiations with Brazilian Foreign MinisterOsvaldo Aranha (on behalf of dictatorGetúlio Vargas), theU.S. introduced itsAir Force along Brazil's coast in the second half of 1941. Germany and Italy subsequently extended their submarine attacks to include Brazilian ships wherever they were, and from April 1942 were found in Brazilian waters.[3] On 22 May 1942, the first Brazilian attack (although unsuccessful) was carried out byBrazilian Air Force aircraft on theItalian submarine Barbarigo.[4] After a series of attacks on merchant vessels off the Brazilian coast byU-507,[4] Brazil officially entered the war on 22 August 1942, offering an important addition to the Allied strategic position in the South Atlantic.[5] Although theBrazilian Navy was small, it had modern minelayers suitable for coastal convoy escort and aircraft which needed only small modifications to become suitable formaritime patrol.[6] During its three years of war, mainly in Caribbean and South Atlantic, alone and in conjunction with the U.S., Brazil escorted 3,167 ships in 614 convoys, totalling 16,500,000 tons, with losses of 0.1%.[7] Brazil saw three of its warships sunk and 486 menkilled in action (332 in the cruiserBahia); 972seamen and civilian passengers were also lost aboard the 32 Brazilian merchant vessels attacked by enemy submarines.[8] American and Brazilian air and naval forces worked closely together until the end of the Battle. One example was the sinking ofU-199 in July 1943, by a coordinated action of Brazilian and American aircraft.[9][10] Only in Brazilian waters, eleven other Axis submarines were known sunk between January and September 1943—the ItalianArchimede and ten German boats:U-128,U-161,U-164,U-507,U-513,U-590,U-591,U-598,U-604, andU-662.[10][11][12]
By late 1943, the decreasing number of Allied shipping losses in South Atlantic coincided with the increasing elimination of Axis submarines operating there.[13] From then, the battle in the region was lost for Germans, even with the most of remaining submarines in the region receiving official order of withdrawal only in August of the following year, and with (Baron Jedburgh) the last Allied merchant ship sunk by a U-boat (U-532) there, on 10 March 1945.[14]
Even before the war, a large Nazi spy ring was found operating in the United States. As of 2023, the Duquesne Spy Ring is still the largest espionage case in United States history that ended in convictions. The 33 German agents who 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 man opened a restaurant and used his position to get information from his customers; another worked at an airline so he could report Allied ships crossing theAtlantic Ocean; others in the ring worked as deliverymen so they could deliver secret messages alongside normal messages. The ring was led by CaptainFritz Joubert Duquesne, a South AfricanBoer who spied for Germany in both World Wars and is best known as "The man who killedKitchener" after he was awarded theIron Cross for his key role in the sabotage and sinking ofHMS Hampshire in 1916.[15]William G. Sebold, adouble agent for the United States, was a major factor in theFBI's successful resolution of this case. For nearly two years, Sebold ran a secret radio station in New York for the ring. Sebold provided the FBI with information on what Germany was sending to its spies in the United States while allowing the FBI to control the information that was being transmitted to Germany. On June 29, 1941, six months before the U.S. declared war, the FBI acted. All 33 spies were arrested, found or pleaded guilty, and sentenced to serve a total of over 300 years in prison.[16]
After declaring war on the United States following theattack on Pearl Harbor,Adolf Hitler ordered the remaining Germansaboteurs to wreak havoc on America.[17] The responsibility for carrying this out was given to German Intelligence (Abwehr). In the spring of 1942, nine agents were recruited (one eventually dropping out) and divided into two teams. The first, commanded byGeorge John Dasch, includedErnst Peter Burger, Heinrich Heinck, andRichard Quirin; the second, under command ofEdward Kerling, included Hermann Neubauer, Werner Thiel, and Herbert Haupt.
On June 12, 1942, theGerman submarine U-202 landed Dasch's team with explosives and plans atAmagansett, New York.[18] Their mission was to destroy power plants at Niagara Falls and three Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA) factories in Illinois, Tennessee, and New York. However, Dasch instead turned himself in to the FBI, providing them with a complete list of his team members and an account of the planned missions, which led to their arrests.
On June 17, Kerling's team landed fromU-584 atPonte Vedra Beach, 25 miles (40 km) south-east ofJacksonville, Florida. They were ordered to place mines in four areas: thePennsylvania Railroad inNewark, New Jersey; canal sluices in bothSt. Louis, Missouri, andCincinnati, Ohio; andNew York City's water supply pipes. The team members made their way to Cincinnati and then split up, two going toChicago, Illinois, and the others to New York. Dasch's confession led to the arrest of all of the men by July 10.
Because the German agents were captured in civilian clothes (though they had landed in uniforms), they were tried by amilitary tribunal inWashington D.C., with six of them sentenced to death forspying. PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt approved the sentences. The constitutionality of military tribunals was upheld by theU.S. Supreme Court inEx parte Quirin on July 31, and the six men wereexecuted by electrocution at theD.C. jail on August 8. Dasch and Burger were given thirty-year prison sentences because they had turned themselves in to the FBI and provided information about the others. Both were released in 1948 and deported to Germany.[19] Dasch (aka George Davis), who had been a longtime American resident before the war, suffered a difficult life in Germany after his return from U.S. custody because he had betrayed his comrades to the 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.) seeking permission to return. He eventually moved to Switzerland and wrote a book, titledEight Spies Against America.[20]
In 1944 another attempt at infiltration was made, codenamed Operation Elster ("Magpie"). Elster involvedErich Gimpel and German-American defectorWilliam Colepaugh. Their mission's objective was to gather intelligence on a variety of military subjects and transmit it back to Germany by a radio to be constructed by Gimpel. They sailed from Kiel onU-1230 and landed atHancock Point, Maine, on November 29, 1944. Both then made their way to New York, but the operation soon collapsed. Colepaugh lost his nerve and turned himself in to the FBI on December 26, confessing the whole plan and naming Gimpel. Gimpel was then arrested four days later in New York. Both men were sentenced to death, but eventually their sentences were commuted. Gimpel spent 10 years in prison, while Colepaugh was released in 1960 and operated a business inKing of Prussia, Pennsylvania, before he retired to Florida.
One month earlier than the Dasch operation (on May 14, 1942), a solitary Abwehr agent, Marius A. Langbein, was landed by a U-boat (U-213) nearSt. Martins, New Brunswick, Canada. His mission, codenamed Operation Grete, after the name of the agent's wife, was to observe and report shipping movements at Montreal andHalifax, Nova Scotia (the main departure port for North Atlantic convoys). Langbein, who had lived in Canada before the war, changed his mind and moved to Ottawa, where he lived off his Abwehr funds until he surrendered to the Canadian authorities in December 1944. A jury found Langbein not guilty of spying, since he had never committed any hostile acts against Canada during the war.[21][22]
In November 1942,U-518 sank two iron ore freighters and damaged another offBell Island inConception Bay,Newfoundland, en route to theGaspé Peninsula where, despite an attack by aRoyal Canadian Air Force aircraft, it successfully landed a spy,Werner von Janowski, four miles (6.5 km) fromNew Carlisle, Quebec, at around 5am on November 9, 1942.[23]
Von Janowski arrived at the New Carlisle Hotel at 06:30 and checked in under the alias of William Brenton. The son of the hotel owner, Earle Annett Jr., grew suspicious of Von Janowski, because of inconsistencies in the German spy's story, and because he used an out-of-circulation note to pay his bill. When Von Janowski left for the train station, Annett followed him.
At the station, Annett alerted aQuebec Provincial Police constable, Alfonse Duchesneau, who boarded the train as it pulled away from the station and began searching for the stranger. Duchesneau located von Janowski, who said he was a radio salesman fromToronto. He stuck with this story until the policeman asked to search his bags; the stranger then confessed: "That will not be necessary. I am a German officer who serves his country as you do yourself."[24][25] Inspection of von Janowski's personal effects upon his arrest revealed that he was carrying a powerful radio transmitter, among other things.
Von Janowski spent the next year as a double agent, codenamedWATCHDOG by the Allies andBobbi by the Abwehr, sending false messages to Germany under the joint control of theRCMP andMI5, with spymaster Cyril Mills having been seconded to Canada to assist in the double cross initiative.[26] The effectiveness and honesty of his "turn" is a matter of some dispute. For example,John Cecil Masterman wrote inThe Double Cross System: "In November, WATCHDOG was landed from a U-boat in Canada together with a wireless set and an extensive questionnaire. This move on the part of the Germans threatened an extension of our activities to other parts of the world, but in fact the case did not develop very satisfactorily... WATCHDOG was closed down in the summer [of 1943]."[27]
Accurate weather reporting was important to the sea war and on September 18, 1943,U-537 sailed fromKiel, viaBergen, Norway, with a meteorological team led by Professor Kurt Sommermeyer. They landed at Martin Bay, a remote location near the northern tip ofLabrador 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.[28] The station was powered by batteries that were expected to last about three months.[29] At the beginning of July 1944,U-867 left Bergen to replace the equipment, but was sunk en route.[28] The weather station remained at the site until it was recovered in the 1980s and placed in theCanadian War Museum.
The Atlantic Ocean was a major strategic battle zone (the "Battle of the Atlantic") and when Germany declared war on the U.S., theEast Coast of the United States offered easy pickings for GermanU-boats (referred to as the "Second Happy Time"). After a highly successful foray by fiveType IX long-range U-boats, the offensive was maximized by the use of short-rangeType VII U-boats, with increased fuel stores, replenished fromsupply U-boats calledMilchkühe (milk cows). From February to May 1942, 348 ships were sunk, for the loss of two U-boats during April and May. U.S. naval commanders were reluctant to introduce the convoy system that had protected trans-Atlantic shipping[clarification needed] and, without coastalblackouts, shipping was silhouetted against the bright lights of American towns and cities such asAtlantic City until a dim-out was ordered in May.[30]
The cumulative effect of this campaign was severe; a quarter of all wartime sinkings – 3.1 million tons. There were several reasons for this. TheAmerican naval commander, AdmiralErnest King, as an apparentanglophobe, was averse totaking British recommendations to introduce convoys,[31] U.S. Coast Guard and Navy patrols were predictable and could be avoided by U-boats, inter-service co-operation was poor, and the U.S. Navy did not possess enough suitable escort vessels (British and Canadian warships were transferred to the U.S. east coast).
Several ships were torpedoed within sight of East Coast cities such as New York andBoston. The only documented World War II sinking of a U-boat close to New England shores occurred on May 5, 1945, when theGerman submarine U-853 torpedoed and sank thecollierBlack Point offNewport, Rhode Island. WhenBlack Point was hit, the U.S. Navy immediately chased down the sub and began droppingdepth charges. In recent years,U-853 has become a popular dive site. Its intact hull, with open hatches, is located in 130 feet (40 m) of water offBlock Island, Rhode Island.[32] A wreck discovered in 1991 off the New Jersey coast was concluded in 1997 to be that ofU-869. Previously,U-869 had been thought to have been sunk offRabat,Morocco.[33]
Once convoys and air cover were introduced in the Atlantic, sinking numbers were reduced and the U-boats shifted to attack shipping in theGulf of Mexico. 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.[34]
In one instance, thetankerVirginia was torpedoed in the mouth of theMississippi River by the German submarineU-507 on May 12, 1942, killing 26 crewmen. There were 14 survivors. Again, when defensive measures were introduced, ship sinkings decreased.
U-166 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 AmphibianJ4F aircraft on August 1, 1942,U-166 is now believed to have been sunk two days earlier by depth charges from the passenger shipSS Robert E. Lee's naval escort, the U.S. Navy sub-chaser,PC-566. 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 (1,500 m) of water within a mile (1,600 m) of her last victim,Robert E. Lee.[34]
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 andSydney, Nova Scotia, became the primary convoy assembly ports, with Halifax being assigned the fast or priority convoys (largely troops and essential material) with the more modern merchant ships, while Sydney was given slow convoys which conveyed bulkier material on older and more vulnerable merchant ships. Both ports were heavily fortified with shore radar emplacements, searchlight 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 harbor entrances, making a direct attack on those facilities unfeasible because it was impossible for Germany to provide air support. Even though no landings of German personnel took place near these ports, there were frequent attacks by U-boats on convoys departing for Europe once these had reached the mouth of the St. Lawrence. Less extensively used, but no less important, was the port ofSaint John which also sawmatériel funneled through the port, largely after the United States entered the war in December 1941. The port's location within the protected waters of the Bay of Fundy made it a difficult target for attack. TheCanadian Pacific Railway mainline from central Canada (which crossed the state ofMaine) could be used to transport in aid of the war effort.
Although 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 theBattle of the St. Lawrence, when U-boats began to venture upriver and attack domestic coastal shipping along Canada's east coast in theSt. Lawrence River andGulf of St. Lawrence from early 1942 through to the end of the shipping season in late 1944. From a German perspective this area contained most of the military assets in North America that could realistically be targeted for attack, and therefore the St. Lawrence was the only zone that saw consistent warfare—albeit on a limited scale—in North America during World War II. Residents along the Gaspé coast and the St. Lawrence River and Gulf of St. Lawrence were startled at the sight of maritime warfare off their shores, with ships on fire and explosions rattling their communities, while bodies and debris floated ashore. The number of military losses is not known, although loose estimates can be made based on the number of surface units and submarines sunk.
Five significant attacks on Newfoundland took place in 1942. On 3 March 1942,U-587 launched three torpedoes at St. John's; one hitFort Amherst and two more hit the cliffs ofSignal Hill belowCabot Tower. In autumn German U-boats attacked fouriron ore carriers serving theDOSCO iron mine atWabana on Bell Island in Newfoundland's Conception Bay. The ships SSSaganaga and SSLord Strathcona were sunk byU-513 on 5 September 1942, while SSRose Castle andP.L.M 27 were sunk byU-518 on 2 November with the loss of 69 lives. After the sinkings the submarine fired a torpedo that missed its target, the 3,000-ton collierAnna T, and struck the DOSCO loading pier and exploded. On 14 October 1942, theNewfoundland Railway ferrySS Caribou was torpedoed byU-69 and sunk in theCabot Strait south ofPort aux Basques.Caribou was carrying 45 crew and 206 civilian and military passengers. One hundred thirty-seven lost their lives, many of them Newfoundlanders.[35]Half a dozen U-boat wrecks lie in waters around Newfoundland and Labrador, destroyed by Canadian patrols.
A German submarine shelled the AmericanStandard Oil refinery at the San Nicolas harbour and the "Arend"/"Eagle" Maatschappij (from the Dutch/British Shell Co.) near theOranjestad harbour situated on the Island ofAruba (a Dutch colony) and some ships that were near the entrance toLake Maracaibo on February 16, 1942. Three tankers, including the VenezuelanMonagas, were sunk. A Venezuelan gunboat,General Urdaneta, assisted in rescuing the crews.[36][37]
A German submarine shelled the island ofMona, some 40 miles (64 km) from the main island ofPuerto Rico, on March 2.
On 15 May 1943,CS-13, aCuban Navy patrol boat, sank the German submarineU-176 northeast ofHavana.U-176, aType IXC U-boat commanded by KapitänleutnantReiner Dierksen, had sunk 11 Allied ships before entering Cuban waters while tracking a convoy. While escorting merchant vessels,CS-13, under Ensign Mario Ramírez Delgado, detected the submarine using sonar provided through U.S. military cooperation. After confirming the contact, the Cuban crew launched depth charges, successfully destroying the U-boat with all 53 crew members aboard.[38]
Before 1941, the Central American nations had various diplomatic ties withNazi Germany and theEmpire of Japan. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, they declared war on the Axis nations. The Central American nations joined the Allied side, broke diplomatic relations with the Axis nations, and initiated persecutions of German and Italian immigrants.
During the course of the war, several merchant ships were sunk in the Caribbean by German submarines, for example theTela, a Honduran cargo ship sunk byU-504 in 1942.[39] This led the country to carry out constant air patrols over the coasts under fear of the approach of more German submarines or the general fear of an attack by Germany. Other Central American cargo ships sunk by U-boats are theOlancho, theComayagua, and theBluefields, of Honduran and Nicaraguan origins. Central American volunteers in the United States Army participated in both the European and Asia Pacific theater.
BeforeOperation MI could be carried out, the Japanese decided to take the Aleutian Islands. On June 3–4, 1942, Japanese planes from two light carriersRyūjō andJun'yōstruck the U.S. against the city ofUnalaska, Alaska, atDutch Harbor in theAleutian Islands. Originally, the Japanese planned to attack Dutch Harbor simultaneously with itsattack on Midway, but the Midway attack was delayed by one day. The attack only did moderate damage on Dutch Harbor, but 43 Americans were killed and 50 others wounded in the attack.
On June 6, two days after the bombing of Dutch Harbor, 500 Japanese marines landed onKiska, one of the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. Upon landing, they killed two and captured eightUnited States Navyofficers, then seized control of American soil for the first time. The next day, a total of 1,140 Japanese infantrymen landed onAttu viaHoltz Bay, eventually reachingMassacre Bay andChichagof Harbor. Attu's population at the time consisted of 45 Alaska NativeAleuts, and two white Americans –Charles Foster Jones, a 60-year-oldham radio operator and weather observer, and his 62-year-old wife Etta, a teacher and nurse. The Japanese killed Charles Jones after interrogating him, while Etta Jones and the Aleut population were sent to Japan, where 16 of the Aleuts died and Etta survived the war.
A year after Japan's occupation of Kiska and Attu, U.S. troopsinvaded Attu on May 11, 1943 and successfully retook the island after three weeks of fighting, killing 2,351 Japanese combatants and taking only 28 asprisoners of war at the cost of 549 lives. Three months later on August 15, U.S. and Canadian forceslanded on Kiska expecting the same resistance like Attu; they later found the entire island empty, as most of the Japanese forces secretly evacuated weeks before the landing. In spite of enemy absence on the island, over 313 Allied casualties were sustained nonetheless throughcar accidents,booby traps,land mines, andfriendly fire, in which 28 Americans and four Canadians were killed in the exchange of fire between the two forces.
Several ships were torpedoed within sight ofWest Coast Californian cities such asLos Angeles,Santa Barbara,San Diego, andSanta Monica. During 1941 and 1942, more than 10 Japanese submarines operated in the West Coast andBaja California. They attacked American, Canadian, and Mexican ships, successfully sinking over 10 vessels including theSoviet Navy submarineL-16 on October 11, 1942.
Thecontinental United States was firstshelled by the Axis on February 23, 1942, when theJapanese submarine I-17 attacked theEllwood Oil Field west ofGoleta, 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.[40] News of the shelling triggered aninvasion scare along the West Coast.[41]
More than five Japanese submarines operated inWestern Canada during 1941 and 1942. On June 20, 1942, theJapanese submarine I-26, under the command of Yokota Minoru,[42] fired 25–30 rounds of 5.5-inch shells at theEstevan Point lighthouse onVancouver Island inBritish Columbia, but failed to hit its target.[43] Though no casualties were reported, the subsequent decision to turn off the lights of outer stations caused difficulties for coastal shipping activity.[44]
In what became the second attack on a continental American military installation during World War II, theJapanese submarine I-25, under the command of Tagami Akiji,[45] surfaced near the mouth of theColumbia River in Oregon on the night of June 21 and June 22, 1942, and fired shells towardFort Stevens. The only damage officially recorded was to abaseball 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 for fear of revealing the guns' location and/or range limitations to the sub. American aircraft on training flights spotted the submarine, which was subsequently attacked by a U.S. bomber, but escaped.
The Lookout Air Raids occurred on September 9, 1942. The second location to be subject toaerial bombing in the continental United States by a foreign power occurred when an attempt to start aforest fire was made by a JapaneseYokosuka E14Y1 "Glen"seaplane dropping two 80 kg (180 lb)incendiary bombs overMount Emily, nearBrookings, Oregon.
The seaplane, piloted byNobuo Fujita, had been launched from the Japanesesubmarine aircraft carrierI-25. No significant damage was officially reported following the attack, nor after a repeat attempt on September 29.
Between November 1944 and April 1945, the Japanese Navy launched over 9,000 fire balloons toward North America. Carried by the recently discovered Pacificjet 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.
NearBly, Oregon, six people (five children and a woman) became the only deaths due to an enemy balloon bomb attack in the United States whena balloon bomb exploded.[46] The site is marked by a stone monument at theMitchell Recreation Area in theFremont-Winema National Forest.
A fire balloon is also considered to be a possible cause of the third fire in theTillamook Burn in Oregon. One member of the555th Parachute Infantry Battalion died while responding to a fire in theUmpqua National Forest nearRoseburg, Oregon, on August 6, 1945; other casualties of the 555th were two fractures and 20 other injuries.
In 1940, theGerman Air Ministry secretly requested designs from the major German aircraft companies for itsAmerikabomber program, in which a long-range strategic bomber would strike the continental United States from theAzores (more than 2,200 miles (3,500 km) away). Planning was complete in 1942 with the submittal of the program to Goering'sRLM offices in March 1942, resulting in piston-engined designs fromFocke-Wulf,Heinkel,Junkers andMesserschmitt (who had built the ultra-long-rangeMesserschmitt Me 261 before WW II), but by mid-1944 the project had been abandoned as too expensive, with a serious increase inthe need for defensive fighters, needing to come from Nazi Germany's by-then rapidly diminishing aviation production capacity.
Hitler had ordered that biological warfare should be studied only for the purpose of defending against it. The head of the Science Division of the Wehrmacht,Erich Schumann, lobbied for Hitler to be persuaded otherwise: "America must be attacked simultaneously with various human and animal epidemic pathogens, as well as plant pests." The plans were never adopted because they were opposed by Hitler.[47]
An Italian naval commander,Junio Valerio Borghese, devised a plan to attackNew York Harbor withmidget submarines; however, as the tides of war changed against Italy, the plan was postponed and later scrapped.[48]
Just after the attack on Pearl Harbor, a force of seven Japanese submarines patrolled the United States West Coast. TheWolfpack made plans to bombard targets in California on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day of 1941. However, the attack was postponed to December 27 in order to avoid attacking during the Christian festival and offending German and Italian allies. Eventually the plan was canceled altogether for fears of American reprisal. In 1946, an unexploded Japanese torpedo was found near theGolden Gate Bridge, and it has been interpreted as evidence of an attack, potentially targeting the bridge itself, in late December 1941.[49]
The Japanese constructed a plan early in thePacific War toattack thePanama Canal, a vital water passage inPanama, used duringWorld War II primarily for the Allied supply effort. The Japanese attack was never launched because Japan suffered crippling naval losses at the beginning of conflict with the United States andUnited Kingdom (See:Aichi M6A).
TheImperial Japanese Army launchedProject Z (also called the Z Bombers Project) in 1942, similar to the Nazi GermanAmerikabomber project, to design an intercontinental bomber capable of reaching North America. The Project Z plane was to have six engines of 5,000 horsepower each; theNakajima Aircraft Company quickly began developing engines for the plane, and proposed doubling HA-44 engines (the most powerful engine available in Japan) into a 36-cylinder engine.[50] Designs were presented to the Imperial Japanese Army, including theNakajima G10N,Kawasaki Ki-91, andNakajima G5N. None developed beyond prototypes or wind tunnel models, save for the G5N. In 1945, the Z project and other heavy bomber projects were cancelled.
During the final months of World War II, Japan had planned to usebubonic plague as a biological weapon against U.S. civilians in San Diego, California, duringOperation Cherry Blossoms at Night. The plan was set to launch at night on September 22, 1945. However, it was shelved becauseJapan surrendered on August 15, 1945.[51][52]
These false alarms have generally been attributed to military and civilian inexperience with war and poor radars of the era. Critics have theorized they were a deliberate attempt by the Army to frighten the public in order to stimulate interest in war preparations.[53]
On December 8, 1941, "rumors of an enemy carrier off the coast led to the closing of schools inOakland, California," a blackout enforced by local wardens and radio silence followed that evening.[53] The reports reaching Washington of an attack on San Francisco were regarded as credible.[53] The affair was described as a test but Lt. Gen.John L. DeWitt of theWestern Defense Command said "Last night there were planes over this community. They were enemy planes! I mean Japanese planes! And they were tracked out to sea. You think it was a hoax? It is damned nonsense for sensible people to assume that the Army and Navy would practice such a hoax on San Francisco."[53] Rumors continued on the West Coast in the following days. An alert of a similar nature occurred in the Northeast on December 9.[53] "At noon advices were received that hostile planes were only two hours' distance away."[53] Although there was no general hysteria, fighter aircraft fromMitchel Field on Long Island took the air to intercept the "raiders".Wall Street had its worst sell off since theFall of France, school children in New York City were sent home and several radio stations left the air.[53] In Boston police shifted heavy stores of guns and ammunition from storage vaults to stations throughout the city, and industrial establishments were advised to prepare for a raid.[53]
The Battle of Los Angeles, also known as "The Great Los Angeles Air Raid", is the name given by contemporary sources to the imaginary enemy attack and subsequent anti-aircraft artillery barrage which took place in 1942 from February 24 and early on February 25 overLos Angeles, California.[54][55] Initially, the target of the aerial barrage was thought to be an attacking force from Japan, butSecretary of the NavyFrank Knox speaking at a press conference shortly afterward called the incident a "false alarm." Newspapers of the time published a number of sensational reports and speculations of a cover-up to conceal an actual invasion by enemy airplanes. When documenting the incident in 1983, the U.S. Office of Air Force History attributed the event to a case of "war nerves" likely triggered by a lostweather balloon and exacerbated by stray flares and shell bursts from adjoining batteries.[56][57]
In May and June theSan Francisco Bay Area underwent a series of alerts:
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