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Originally Posted by Jimbuna

1942 First bombing on continental US soil at Mount Emily, Oregon during WWII by Japanese planes.

1942:Nobuo Fujita was a warrant flying officer of the IJN who flew a floatplane from the long-range I-25 and conducted the only wartime aircraft-dropped bombing on the contiguous US, which became known as the Lookout Air Raid. Using incendiary bombs, his mission was to start massive forest fires in the Pacific northwest near the city of Brookings, Oregon with the objective of drawing the U.S. military's resources away from the pacific theater! The strategy was also used later in the Japanese fire balloon campaign. Fujita himself suggested the idea of a submarine-based seaplane to bomb military targets, including ships at sea, and attacks on the U.S. mainland, especially the strategic Panama Canal. At 06:00 on 9 September, I-25 surfaced west of the Oregon border where she launched the Yokosuka E14Y Glen, <Fugita & 'Glen") flown by Fujita and Petty officer Okuda Shoji with a 154 kg (340 lb) load of two incendiary bombs. Fujita dropped two bombs, one on Wheeler Ridge on Mount Emily in Oregon. The location of the other bomb is unknown. The Wheeler Ridge bomb started a small fire 16 km (9.9 mi) due east of Brookings, which U.S. Forest Service employees were able to extinguish. Rain the night before had made the forest very damp, and the bombs were rendered essentially ineffective. Fujita's plane had been spotted by two men, Howard Gardner and Bob Larson, at the Mount Emily firetower; the other lookouts (the Chetco Point Lookout and the Long Ridge Lookout) reported the plane, but could not see it due to heavy fog. The plane was seen and heard by many people, especially when Fujita flew over Brookings in both directions. At about noon that day, Howard Gardner at the Mount Emily Lookout reported seeing smoke. The four U.S. Forest Service employees discovered that the fire was caused by a Japanese bomb. Approximately 27 kg (60 lb) of fragments, including the nose of the bomb, were turned over to the army.
After the bombing, I-25 came under attack after the Glen seaplane had landed and been disassembled for storage, I-25 was bombed by a United States Army Hudson piloted by Captain Jean H. Daugherty. The Hudson carried 300-pound general purpose demolition bombs with delayed fuzes rather than depth charges. The bombs caused minor damage, but quick response by a Coaast Guard and three more aircraft caused I-25 to be more cautious on a second bombing raid on 29 September 1942. The American attacks caused only minor damage, and Fujita flew a second bombing sortie three weeks later on 29 September. Fujita used the Cape Blanco Light as a beacon. After 90 minutes flying east, he dropped his bombs and reported seeing flames, but the bombing remained unnoticed in the U.S. http://www.historynet.com/japanese-bomb-the-continental-u-s-west-coast.htm
The submarine torpedoed and sank the SS Camden and SS Larry Doheny and then sailed for home. On its way to Japan, I-25 sank the Soviet submarine L-16, which was in transit between Dutch harbor and San Francisco CA, mistaking it for an American submarine (Japan and the USSR were not at war at the time).
The two attacks on Oregon in September 1942 were the only World War II aircraft bombings on the US mainland. All-in-all a rather productive and strategic submarine mission. This being a submarine Forum: No small amount of kudos to the sub's capable and daring commander: LT. Commander Meiji Tagami https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_submarine_I-25

How significant were these two bombing attacks on Oregon, the only times in history that America has been bombed from the air? For the Japanese, they were clearly a major propaganda victory, one that made banner headlines on the home front and to some extent evened the score for the April 18, 1942, Jimmy Doolittle raid on Tokyo, itself a retaliatory raid in return for the Pearl Harbor attack. Fujita found himself something of a national hero upon his return to japan.

Fujita returned to Brookings, OR in 1990, 1992, and 1995. In 1992, he planted a tree at the bomb site as a gesture of peace. In 1995, he moved the donated family samurai sword from the Brookings City Hall into the new library's display case. He was made an honorary citizen of Brookings several days before his death at a hospital in on September 30, 1997, at the age of 85. In October 1998, his daughter, Yoriko Asakura, buried some of Fujita's ashes at the bomb site. wiki