Angriffe auf Nordamerika während des Zweiten Weltkriegs
Attacks on North America during World War II by the Axis Powers were rare, mainly due to the continent's geographical separation from the central theaters of conflict in Europe and Asia. This article includes attacks and landings upon the countries of The United States, Canada, and Newfoundland, but excludes military action involving the Danish territory of Greenland.
Japanese assaults
Although not an attack on North America, the December 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor which drew the United States into World War II was the precursor to a number of Japanese assaults on the North American mainland.
Ellwood shelling
The United States mainland was first shelled by the Axis on February 23, 1942 when the Japanese submarine I-17 attacked the Ellwood oil production facilities at Goleta, near Santa Barbara, California. Although only a catwalk and pumphouse 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 estimated at approximately $500.
The Battle of Los Angeles
In an incident now known as "The Battle of Los Angeles", the U.S. Army fired several thousand anti-aircraft shells at an unidentified target over Santa Monica, California during the night of February 24-25, 1942. The target was later officially determined to be a lost weather balloon, although this was never confirmed. It may possibly have been an early Japanese fire balloon. [1] [2]
The San Francisco Bay Area on alert
In May and June 1942, the San Francisco Bay Area underwent a series of alerts:
- May 12: A twenty-five minute air-raid alert.
- May 27: West Coast defences put on alert after Army codebreakers learned that the Japanese intended a series of hit-and-run attacks in reprisal for the Doolittle Raid.
- May 31: The battleships USS Colorado and USS Maryland set sail from the Golden Gate to form a line of defense against any Japanese attack mounted on San Francisco.
- June 2: A nine-minute air-raid alert, including at 9:22pm a radio silence order applied to all radio stations from Mexico to Canada.
There was also a forty-five minute air-raid alert and radio silence order later in the year, on November 28.
Battle of the Aleutian Islands
On June 3, 1942 the Aleutian Islands, running southwest from mainland Alaska, were invaded by Japanese forces as a diversion to deflect attention from the main Japanese attack on Midway Atoll. Having broken the Japanese military codes, however, the U.S. knew it was a diversion and did not expend large amounts of effort defending the islands. Although most of the civilian population had been moved to camps on the Alaska Panhandle, some Americans were captured and taken to Japan as prisoners of war.
In what became known as the Battle of the Aleutian Islands, American forces engaged the Japanese on Attu Island and regained control by the end of May 1943, after taking significant casualties in difficult terrain. A large invasion force, mainly US, but including some Canadian troops, assaulted Kiska Island on August 7 1943, but the Japanese had already withdrawn, undetected, ten days earlier.
In response to the United States' success at the Battle of Midway, the invasion alert for San Francisco was canceled on June 8.
Attacks on Oregon
In what became the only attack on a mainland American military installation during World War II, a Japanese submarine surfaced near the mouth of the Columbia River, Oregon on the night of the 21-22 June 1942 and fired shells toward Fort Stevens. The only damage recorded was to a baseball ground's backstop.
On 9 September 1942 the first aerial bombing of mainland America by a foreign power occurred when an attempt to start a forest fire was made by a Japanese Yokosuka E14Y1 seaplane dropping 170lb incendiary bombs over Mount Emily, near Brookings, Oregon. The seaplane, piloted by Nobuo Fujita, had been launched from the Japanese submarine aircraft carrier I-25. No significant damage was reported following the attack, nor following a repeat attempt made three weeks later on 29 September.
Fire balloons
Between November 1944 and April 1945, Japan launched over 9,000 fire balloons toward the American mainland. Carried by the recently-discovered Pacific jet stream, they were to sail over the Pacific Ocean and land in North America, where the Japanese hoped they would start forest fires and wreak devastation. About three hundred were reported as reaching North America, but little damage was caused. Six people – five children and their minder Elise Mitchell – became the only deaths due to enemy action to occur on mainland America during World War II when one of the children tried to recover a balloon from a tree near Bly, Oregon and it exploded.
Proposed flying boat bombing raids
Vice-Admiral Kazume Kinsei, a former UCLA student, proposed using six Kawanishi H8K "Emily" flying boats to bomb the west coast of the United States. They would take off from Wotje Atoll in the Marshall Islands (about 2,300 miles west of Pearl Harbor) and rendezvous with submarines off the coast of California for refuelling before flying on to bomb Los Angeles. The planes would then return to Japanese-controlled territory via a second refuelling stop. A trial run with three H8Ks attacking the Hawaiian Islands, however, caused no significant damage.
After the Battle of Midway, Kinsei revised the plan to propose that as many as thirty H8Ks refuelled from submarines off the Baja California coast, bomb oilfields in Texas and then rendezvous with German "Milch Kuh" ("Milk Cow") U-boat tankers in the Gulf of Mexico. Thereafter, supported by the U-boat tankers, they would range up and down the east coast of the United States making terror and propaganda raids on cities such as Boston, New York and Washington D.C. The idea was approved by both the Japanese naval command and German U-boat chief Admiral Karl Dönitz, but by the fall of 1942 Japan's need to defend its gains meant that all long-range aircraft were confined to reconaissance-type missions in the Pacific.
I-400/Aichi M6A plan
The Imperial Submarine Squadron One, under the command of Captain Tatsunosuke Ariizumi (I-400 "Sentoku" Class Submarine/ Aichi M6A1 special torpedo-bomber force) was composed of: the I-13, (equipped with 2 aircraft); the I-14, (equipped with 2 aircraft); the I-400, (equipped with 3 or 4 aircraft); and the I-401, (equipped with 3 or 4 aircraft)
For their first mission, Vice Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa, Vice Chief of the Navy General Staff, selected "Operation PX", a top secret plan to use the I-400 unit's ten aircraft to unleash bacteriological warfare on populous areas of the American West Coast and Pacific Islands.
On March 26, 1945, this mission was canceled by General Yoshijiro Umezu, Chief of the Army General Staff, who declared that "Germ warfare against the United States would escalate to war against all humanity".
As an alternative, the staff considered bombing San Francisco, Panama, Washington D.C. or New York, and decided to launch a surprise air strike against the Panama Canal's Gatun Locks. Destroying these locks would empty Gatun Lake and block the passage of shipping for months.
For the 17,000 mile round trip to Panama, each submarine needed 1,600 tons of diesel fuel, which was unavailable at Kure. The I-401 was therefore dispatched to Dairen, Manchukuo, to bring back the needed oil. On April 12 she grazed a B-29-laid mine off Hime Shima Lighthouse in the Inland Sea and had to return for repairs. In her place I-400 successfully carried out the undersea tanker mission.
While the submersible carriers were perfecting their tactics to cripple the Panama Canal, the Japanese Navy was steadily deteriorating. Before the submarines could set sail for Panama, more than 3,000 Allied warships and transports had reached the Pacific for Operation Olympic, the forthcoming invasion of Japan.
This growing threat forced Tokyo strategists to reconsider the attack on distant Panama, which now appeared a questionable diversion. Over his vehement objections, Captain Ariizumi was ordered to abandon his squadron's carefully rehearsed canal strike and instead attack the American naval forces at Ulithi Atoll.
Japanese land based long-range bombers
The Japanese Navy ordered the construction of Nakajima G10N1 "Fugaku" (Mount Fuji), an ultra-long range heavy bomber, for bombing the United States mainland. The bomb-load capability of the bomber was 20,000 kg for short-range sorties; 5,000 kg for sorties against targets in the U.S. Another similar project with a similar purpose was the four engined bomber Nakajima G8N "Renzan" Rita.
The Japanese Army ordered the design of Tachikawa Ki- 74 "Patsy", an ultra long-range reconnaissance bomber originally designed to be used against Soviets in Siberian lands. Later, it was ordered for development for bombing missions against the United States. The bomb charge was 500 kg to 1,000 kg. This bomber was also known as the "Japanese Siberian Bomber"
Japanese invasion plans
Kinoaki Matsuo, a high-ranking officer of the Black Dragon Society, wrote the Book The Three Power Alliance And The United States-Japanese War, which is purported to detail the Japanese war plans for the simultaneous invasions of the Panama Canal Zone, Alaska, California and Washington.
German assaults
German landings
United States
When the United States entered World War II, Adolf Hitler ordered German saboteurs to wreak havoc on the country. In June, 1942, eight agents were recruited and divided into two teams: the first, commanded by John Dasch, with Ernest Burger, Heinrich Heinck and Richard Quirin. The second, under the command of Edward Kerling, with Hermann Neubauer, Werner Thiel and Herbert Hapt. The operation was called Pastorious.
On June 12, 1942, U-Boat U-202, (twinned with the Austrian city of Innsbruck), offloaded Dasch's team with explosives and plans at East Hampton, Long Island [3], New York. Their mission was to destroy power plants at Niagara Falls and three Aluminium Company factories in Illinois, Tennessee and New York. A US Coast Guardsman, however, observed and reported them. During interrogation Dasch and Burger confessed to the FBI and obtained more lenient treatment.
Kerling's team were landed from U-584 at Ponte Verda Beach (25 miles south-east of Jacksonville, Florida), on June 17, 1942. Their tasks were to mine the Pennsylvania Railroad in Newark, New Jersey, canal sluices at St. Louis and Cincinnati, and New York City's water supply pipes. They made their way to Cincinnati, Ohio and split up, with two going to Chicago, Illinois and the others to New York. However, the Dasch confession led to the arrest of all of the men by July 10.
All eight were rapidly tried, convicted and condemned [4]. The President decided the sentences; there was no appeal allowed. Six of the eight men were electrocuted on August 8; the others, Dasch and Burger, were given thirty-year prison sentences. They were released in 1948 and deported to Germany.
In 1944 there was an attempt by two Kriegsmarine and Abwehr agents, Erich Gimpel and German American defector William Colepaugh (or Kolepaugh), to locate and destroy the laboratories where the atomic bomb was under construction. The pair sailed from Kiel on the U-1230 and landed at Frenchman’s Bay, Cape Cod on October 29th 1944. Colepaugh was captured on December 26th and he confessed the whole plan to the FBI; Gimpel was arrested four days later in New York. Both men had their death sentences commuted to long prison sentences, but they were released and returned to Germany, during the 1950s.
Canada
At about the same time as the Dasch operation (on April 25), a solitary Abwehr agent (Marius A Langbein) was landed by U-boat (possibly U-217) near St. Martin, New Brunswick, Canada. His mission was to observe and report shipping movements at Halifax, Nova Scotia (a busy departure port for North Atlantic convoys). Langbein changed his mind, however, and moved to Ottawa where he lived off his Abwehr funds, before surrendering to the Canadian authorities in December 1944.
Newfoundland
Accurate weather reporting was important to the sea war and on 18th September 1943, U-537 sailed from Kiel, via Bergen (Norway), with a meteorological team lead by Professor Kurt Sommermeyer. They landed at Martin Bay, northern Labrador on October 22 1943 and successfully set up an automatic weather station, despite the constant risk of Allied air patrols; this only worked for a short time, however. At the beginning of July 1944, U-867 left Bergen to replace the failed equipment, but was sunk en route.
U-Boat operations
United States
The Atlantic Ocean was a major strategic battle zone (Second Battle of the Atlantic) and when Germany declared war on the US, the East Coast offered easy pickings for German U-Boats (referred to as the Second happy time). In February to May, 1942, 348 ships were sunk, but no U-boat was lost until May. The US was reluctant to introduce the convoy system that had protected trans-Atlantic shipping and coastal shipping was often silhouetted against the bright lights of American towns and cities.
Several ships were torpedoed within sight of East Coast cities such as New York and Boston; indeed, some civilians sat on beaches and watched battles between U.S. and German ships.
Once convoys and air cover were introduced, sinking numbers were reduced and the U-boats shifted to attack shipping in the Gulf of Mexico, with 121 losses in June. In one instance, the tanker Virginia was torpedoed in the mouth of the Mississippi River by the German U-Boat U-507 on May 12, 1942, killing 26 crewmen. There were 14 survivors. Again, when defensive measures were introduced, ship sinkings decreased and U-boat sinkings increased.
The cumulative effect of this campaign was severe; a quarter of all wartime sinkings - 3.1 million tons. It rates as the worst defeat by the United States Navy.
Canada
From June 10, 1942 until December 1944, sinkings took place in the St. Lawrence River. Although this area was never a prime target for U-boats, it did offer easy pickings until late in the war, due to the state of the Canadian defences and their naval commitments elsewhere. The period is sometimes referred to as the Battle of the St. Lawrence.
Newfoundland
Two significant attacks took place in 1942 when German U-boats attacked four allied ore carriers at Bell Island, Newfoundland. The carriers S.S. Saganaga and the S.S. Lord Strathcona were sunk by U-513 on September 5, 1942, while the S.S. Rosecastle and P.L.M 27 were sunk by U-518 on November 2 with the loss of 69 lives. However, one of the most dramatic incidents of the attack occurred after the sinkings when the submarine fired a torpedo at the loading pier. Bell Island became the only location in North America to be subject to direct attack by German forces in World War II.
Aircraft and rockets
The Messerschmitt Me 264, part of the "Amerika Bomber" program, was developed to bomb the continental United States from Germany. Only three prototypes were built, and the project was cancelled before any attempts were made to even see if the journey was feasible.
A similar design was the Junkers Ju 390. It was intended to strike America, particularly New York City. This gave it the name "The New York Bomber." It is alleged that such a bomber made it close to New York, but this has never been confirmed.
Another plan called for V-1 and V-2 rockets to be fitted to U-Boats and launched on New York City. These would be launched by Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 290 planes armed with four V-1 under their wings. The Germans also considered using Long-range versions of A-4 rockets (V-4 "Rheinbote" multi phase missile or other similar types) launched from France to hit the American mainland.
German plans for invasion
Operation Barbarossa, the June 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union, was alleged by some to be a testing ground for an invasion of America. Another alleged German invasion plan was "Operation Felix", in conjunction with Spain, which called for obtaining control of Atlantic islands and seas to launch long-range strikes and an eventual invasion of America.
Italian plans
New York Harbor Attack
Fascist Italy planned to damage dock facilities and sink ships moored in New York Harbor using Maiale Midget submarines. In 1943 preparations were well underway to deploy these weapons against the United States.
The Regia Aeronautica (Italian Air Force), working in conjunction with the Regia Marina (Italian Navy), prepared two long-range Cantieri Zappata CANT Z.511 flying boats for the operation. The CANT Z.511 was powered by four 1,500 hp Piaggio P.XII RC 35 radial engines giving it a maximum range of 2,796 miles. This seaplane also had extremely good stability in waters with up to 7-foot waves. It could carry two or four Maiales.
The operation was to commence as follows: CANTs flying the Atlantic would fly low under enemy radar to a point from which the midget submarines could be launched. The crews of the submarines were special volunteers, who after completing their mission, were authorized to surrender. No plans were made for returning them to the seaplanes.
By May 1943 cooperation with supply U-boats was obtained. The CANTs had been successfully tested with Maiales man-guided torpedos and special volunteers for one-way missions. The raid was scheduled to take place under ideal weather conditions in mid-June of the same year. However, only three weeks before, both the seaplanes and their specially fitted launch racks were partially damaged by British fighters when the CANT's base in Lake Trasimento was strafed. The following July Marschal Pietro Badoglio declared an Italian armistice and the project was abandoned. The planned attack against New York might have scored a success paralleling the Italian attack in Alexandria Bay, Egypt during the Axis Powers' North African campaign.
See also
- Black Tom Explosion – Possible German sabotage in World War I
- Bell Island, the only North American land site attacked by Germany in WWII.
Further reading
- Dobbs, Michael. Saboteurs: The Nazi Raid on America ISBN 0375414703 (2004)
- Gimpel, Erich. Agent 146: The True Story of a Nazi Spy in America ISBN 0312307977 (2003)
- Griehl, Manfred. Luftwaffe over America: The Secret Plans to Bomb the United States in World War II ISBN 185367608X (2004)
- Mikesh, Robert C. Japan's World War II Balloon Bomb Attacks on North America, Smithsonian Institution Press, (1973)