The
attack on Pearl Harbor was neither the U.S.' first armed conflict leading to WW II, nor the last Axis attack on American soil.
On December 12, 1937, Japan, then at war with China, sank a
U.S. Navy gunboat in the Yangtze river. On April 10, 1941, a
U.S. Navy destroyer fired a depth charge at a German submarine that was preparing to attack a convoy it was escorting. On May 21, 1941, a German submarine sank
a U.S. commercial ship (after allowing its crew to evacuate.) In September, 1941 a U.S. Coast Guard cutter patrolling Greenland
captured a German ship. On October 31, 1941, a German submarine sank a
U.S. Navy destroyer.
There were
numerous minor attacks on North America. Japanese submarines
shelled an oil field near Santa Barbara, California (fueling a later scare of an
attack on Los Angeles.) In Oregon,
Fort Stevens was shelled by a Japanese submarine; the fort's gunners were commanded not to return fire, lest they assist the sub's aim. In the first aerial bombing of the contintental U.S.,
a Japanese plane dropped two incendiary bombs in southwestern Oregon, intending to start a forest fire. Japan captured and held
two Aleutian islands for about a year.
And, late in the war, Japan loosed thousands of
fire balloons toward the U.S.' west coast. At first it was feared they were being launched on American soil; Batman-like forensics ultimately determined exactly which beaches in Japan the sandbags came from. While the balloons did some minor damage, it was covered up in the press to avoid giving any appearance of the attacks' effectiveness.
Germany placed the
Dusquene Spy Ring, and later attempted the ill-fated sabotage operation
Operation Pastorius.
posted by Carol Anne at 9:30 AM on December 7, 2010 [1 favorite]