The attack was the first naval bombardment of the United States by a foreign power since the War of 1812 ( Battle of Baltimore of 1814 by British Royal Navy), excluding the incidental shelling of coastland Orleans, Massachusetts in 1918. In reality, the I-17 had sailed west, safely returning to Japan. He said the I-17 turned south towards Los Angeles, apparently flashing signal lights to someone onshore. Reverend Arthur Basham of Montecito called the police to claim he had seen the enemy submarine from his home. A day later, reports of enemy aircraft led to the so-called “ Battle of Los Angeles,” in which American artillery was discharged over Los Angeles for several hours due to the mistaken belief that the Japanese were invading. Although he caused only light damage, Nishino had achieved his purpose, which was to spread fear along the American west coast. Estimates of the number of explosive shells fired ranged from 12 to 25. ![]() After 20 minutes, the gunners ceased fire and the submarine sailed away. The Japanese shells destroyed a derrick and a pump house, while the Ellwood Pier and a catwalk suffered minor damage. A deputy sheriff assured him that warplanes were already on their way, but none arrived. ![]() One round passed over Wheeler's Inn, whose owner Laurence Wheeler promptly called the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office. Brown and the others called the police, as the Japanese shells continued to fall around them.įiring in the dark from a submarine buffeted by waves, it was inevitable that rounds would miss their target. Nishino soon ordered his men to aim at the second storage tank. Brown later told reporters that the enemy submarine looked so big to him he thought it must be a cruiser or a destroyer until he realized that only one gun was firing. They took it to be an internal explosion until one man spotted the I-17 off the coast. The oil field's workmen had mostly left for the day, but a skeleton crew on duty heard the rounds hit. Its crew took aim at a Richfield aviation fuel tank just beyond the beach and opened fire about 15 minutes later with the first rounds landing near a storage facility. Nishino ordered the deck gun readied for action. Bombardment Īt around 7:00 pm on February 23, 1942, the I-17 came to a stop opposite the Ellwood field on the Gaviota Coast. However, after graduating from the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy in 1920, Nishino spent his entire career as a submarine crew member and officer and did not command a merchant ship, so the story of his prewar relationship to Santa Barbara is unlikely. A popular story about the attack is that Nishino had been a naval reserve officer before the war and had commanded a pre-war merchant ship that sailed through the Santa Barbara Channel and had once stopped at the Ellwood Oil Field to take on a cargo of oil. ![]() The Japanese government, concerned about President Roosevelt's radio speech scheduled for February 23, 1942, ordered a Japanese submarine to shell the California coast on that day. ![]() She carried 101 officers and men, captained by Commander Kozo Nishino. Her armament included six 20 in (510 mm) torpedo tubes and 17 torpedoes, plus a 14-cm deck gun. One of these was the Imperial Japanese Navy submarine I-17. However, several had gone to Kwajalein and would pay a return visit to American waters. By the end of December, the submarines had all returned to friendly waters to resupply. They sank two merchant ships and damaged six more, skirmishing twice with U.S. The event also marked the first shelling of the North American mainland during the conflict.įollowing the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, seven Japanese submarines patrolled the American West Coast. Though the damage was minimal, the event was key in triggering the West Coast invasion scare and influenced the decision to intern Japanese-Americans. The Bombardment of Ellwood during World War II was a naval attack by a Japanese submarine against United States coastal targets near Santa Barbara, California.
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