JAPANESE AIRCRAFT BOMBS MAINLAND USA!

Did you know that the Japanese actually bombed the mainland USA? I didn't until last year while visiting this area. I'm not talking about the submarine that shot it's one canon at the beach near Astoria. I'm talking about an airplane dropping bombs! Four bombs actually. Here's what happened. The Japanese built this waterproof hanger, put a float plane in it, attached it to a submarine and sailed to the Oregon coast. There they surfaced, but the wings on the plane and launched it from the sub. They didn't put it in the water first, but actually launched it from the sub. The plane flew over the forest, dropped it's two incendiary bombs and returned to the sub. Then they stuffed the plane back into the hanger, submerged, cruised up the coast and did the whole thing all over again. It's amazing. Their goal was to set the forest on fire so men would have to fight it and not be available for the military. It worked, a little. One coastal lookout had to go and put the one little fire out, which he did in a matter of hours. It seems the Japanese didn't realize that the forest is a rain forest, and in the fall, nothing is going to burn, it's just too wet. But after Doolittle's raid on the Japan homeland, it must have felt good to return the favor.

Today I hiked to where the one bomb that was found was dropped. The Forest Service did good job at building the trail with displays telling what happened. The other amazing thing about today was that I was hiking in my t-shirt. That's right! February 3rd in the Oregon Coastal Range I was hiking with just a t-shirt! Unreal!!!