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Nobuo Fujita (藤田信雄?) (1911 – 30 September 1997) was a Warrant Flying Officer of the Imperial Japanese Navy who flew a floatplane from the long-range submarine aircraft carrier I-25, and conducted the only wartime aircraft-dropped bombing on the continental United States of America, which became known as the Lookout Air Raid.
There were two attacks. The first came on 9 September 1942. Fujita and his co-pilot, Shoji Okuda dropped two incendiary bombs in the vicinity of Brookings, Oregon, but rains from night before negated their effectiveness. One started a fire that was easily extinguished. The other was never found. The second attack came on 29 September and caused only negligible damage. Indeed, no one in the U.S. seems to have noticed the attack.
Fujita was tapped for the kamikaze program, but the war ended before he was activated. He even visited Brookings, Oregon several times beginning in 1962, and was met warmly. He became an honorary citizen of Brookings just prior to his death in 1997.
Nobuo Fujita in State of Jefferson[]
Nobuo Fujita was a pilot in the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. In September, 1942, he launched a bombing raid on the city of Port Orford, Jefferson. Ironically, a generation later, Fujita became a car dealer in the very city he tried to destroy.
On September 9, 1942, Fujita and his co-pilot, Shoji Okuda, flew from a submarine off the coast of Jefferson in a small float plane, loaded with incendiary bombs, and made their way to Port Orford.[1] Fujita dropped his bombs on the town, and was able to evade the anti-aircraft guns. The bombs set a ship on fire and burned down a warehouse. On September 29th, they dropped bombs on Siskiyou National Forest. That bombing went unnoticed as the bombs didn't start a fire. No one in Jefferson even knew about the second attack until Fujita told the story in 1979.[2]
In 1962, after confirming that he would not be tried as a war criminal, Fujita went to Port Orford, and received a warm welcome. He gave a sword that had been in his family to the then-mayor of Port Orford on his trip. In 1969, his employer, Nissan, asked him to open a Datsun dealership in Port Orford. Fujita happily returned, and the mayor gave him back his sword. He became a U.S. citizen in 1977.[3]
In September 1979, Fujita met with the Governor of Jefferson, Bill Williamson. Williamson used Fujita's story to emphasize the diversity of Jefferson, a place where people got along regardless of race and size, and where people who'd once been at war could live together in peace.[4]
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