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 on continental territory (extending 200 miles into the ocean) which is today under the sovereignty of the United States and Canada 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.
Estevan Point Lighthouse
On June 20, 1942, a Japanese submarine manned by chief gunner Hashiro Hayashi fired 25-30 rounds of 5.5" shells at the Estevan Point lighthouse on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, but failed to hit its target. This marked the first enemy shelling of Canadian soil since the War of 1812. Though no casualties were reported, the subsequent decision to turn off the lights of outer stations was disastrous for shipping activity.
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 June 21-22, 1942, and fired shells toward Fort Stevens. The only damage recorded was to a baseball field's backstop.
The Oregon Lookout Air Raid
The Lookout Air Raid occurred on September 9, 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 170 lb. 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 after a repeat attempt September 29.
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 mother 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.
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. See Also: Axis plans for invasion of the United States during WWII
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 George 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 Operation Pastorius.
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 Vedra 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, to set up an intelligence gathering operation in New York City. The pair sailed from Kiel on the U-1230 and landed at Hancock Point, Maine on November 30, 1944. The pair made their way to New York, but the operation was a total failure. Colepaugh turned himself in to the FBI on December 26, confessing 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. Gimpel was released after 10 years in prison and deported to Brazil; Colepaugh was released in 1960 and operated a business in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania before retiring to Florida.
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. Martins, 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.
In November, the U-518 sank two freighters and damaged another in Conception Bay, Newfoundland, en route to the Gaspé where, despite an attack by a Royal Canadian Air Force aircraft, it successfully landed a spy at Point de New Carlisle, Quebec.
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 ("Weather Station Kurt" or "Wetter-Funkgerät Land-26"), 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). To maximise the offensive, short-range Type VII U-boats increased their fuel stores and replenished from supply U-boats or "Milchkuh". 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. There were several reasons for this. The naval commander, Admiral Ernest King, was averse to taking British recommendations to introduce convoys, U.S. Coast Guard and Navy patrols were predictable and could be avoided by U-boats, poor inter-service co-operation, and the U.S. Navy did not possess enough suitable escort vessels (British and Canadian warships were transferred to the U.S. east coast).
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
Three 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 that missed its target, the 3000 ton collier Anna T, and struck the loading pier. Bell Island thus became the only location in North America to be subject to direct attack by German forces in World War II. On October 14, 1942, the SS Caribou was torpedoed by the German U-boat U-69 and sunk in the Cabot Strait. Caribou was carrying 45 crew and 206 civilian and military passengers. 137 lost their lives, many of them Newfoundlanders.
Mexico
Although not an attack on Mexican territory, the sinking of the Mexican tanker Faja de Oro by the German U-boat, U-160, on May 21, 1942 off Key West, prompted the entry of Mexico into World War II.
Notes
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.
- Weather Station Kurt
- Axis plans for invasion of the United States during 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)
- Kesich, Gregory D., 1944: When spies came to Maine[[5], Portland Press Herald (2003)