Naval History Forums

There were attempts to start forest fires in the Northwest as well, but not much came of any of it.

There was also a bombing raid or two. I think vs a target in Oregon.

lwd wrote:There was also a bombing raid or two. I think vs a target in Oregon.

Yes, that's where I live. From museum photos IIRC the bombing raids were from submarines and were incendiary drops in the forest.

A submarine shelled the vicinity of a local battery, attempting to get it to unmask and betray it's location. To the great disappointment of the gun crews, they were ordered not to fire.

An IJN sub did shell the Estevan point lighthouse, on Canada's Vancouver island:

The quiet solace of Estevan Point Lighthouse, a landmark only minutes from my home, was shattered on the evening of June 20, 1942 when a Japanese submarine surfaced in the darkness two miles off Estevan point.

The Japanese submarine I-26 fired between twenty-five and thirty rounds of 5.5 inch shells directly at the station. Fortunately the gunners had remarkably poor aim, missing the light station and the nearby settlement of Hesquiat.

Estevan Point went down in history as the first place where enemy shells had struck Canadian soil since 1812.

Accounts published after the war left no doubt that the shellfire came from a submarine's deck gun and Commander Yokota of the Japanese submarine I-26 freely admitted to the attack.

Although no casualties were reported, the event had serious repercussions for mariners on the west coast. The lights of the outer coast stations were turned off to prevent their use by submarines, virtually paralysing the shipping that remained on the coast during the war years.

http://www.rc-sub.com/bclass.html

http://www.combinedfleet.com/I-26.htm

Interesting. I was unaware of this attack off Vancouver. From the disruption caused from it the sub achieved its purpose.

Makes you wonder what one or two German U-boats in this theatre would have achieved - were they able to get there of course.

RF wrote:Interesting. I was unaware of this attack off Vancouver. From the disruption caused from it the sub achieved its purpose.

Makes you wonder what one or two German U-boats in this theatre would have achieved - were they able to get there of course.

I suspect that the last sentence that I quoted was a bit over the top, but it must have caused some shipping delays.

I was thinking on the basis that the German U-boats were far better at sinking Allied shipping than Jap subs. The latter hardly sank anything off the American west coast, yet the opportunities were there in 1942.

RF wrote:I was thinking on the basis that the German U-boats were far better at sinking Allied shipping than Jap subs. The latter hardly sank anything off the American west coast, yet the opportunities were there in 1942.

Well there weren't very many Japanese subs patroling off the US West coast. Those that were there weren't there for very long and they tended to be big and slow diving which meant they had to be very careful.

I did read an account of Jap sub activity off the US coast during early 1942 fairly recently. They did find merchant ship targets but the attacks were not carried out with any great success. Their main achievement was firing at shore targets with their deck guns.

Before this thread gets buried and lost in the forum, I want to inform you that I have converted Dave Saxton's article in .html format and it is now available from the main page of the site (www.kbismarck.org) right here:

http://www.kbismarck.org/asradars.html

From now on, everytime I find a good and well researched article in the forum I will do that. Of course if you like to write you can send me anything in .doc format directly via e-mail and I will be more than glad to have it published here.

Seeing this, I should make a few corrections pertaining to the British Types-279 and 281 radars, that I should have made earlier. According to Derek Howse, some British warships retained the Type-279 without duplexing, and did not have duplexing Type- 279 and Type-281 at the same time. To the trained eye the indvidual ships of the KGV class could be identified from the radar antennas on the mast heads. KGV had Type-279, but others had Type-281 instead.

Although Type-279 was originally designed primarily for both surface surveilence and air warning, in practice it was used mainly for air warning, and became in effect an air warning radar. In the Pacific, late war, the Type-279 was still highly prized for extra long range air warning.

Thanks Dave, I will make sure to add that as well.
By the way, are you sure KGV had a 279? According to Schofield both POW and KGV had a Type 281.

Howse relates an account about Bob McCormick, a Canadian radar officer winning a bet with two RN officers about the mast head radar antennas on KGV:

" ...a King George V class battleship was coming to the anchorage, but still hull-down.

Guns was saying that the battleship was Duke of York, and calling Torps all sorts of names because Torps thought it was Anson. Bob took one quick look at the far distant ship and said: 'You're both wrong. It's KGV!"

The argument stopped and then both 'professionals' started laughing. What was this single-striped, green striped, wavy striped, Colonial doing interrupting a professional discusssion between his betters? Bob had never heard either of them laugh before, and he was nervious. 'What we should do is put in a pound apeice, and the one who's right gets the three quid' he suggested.

'Done!"

Bob had the last laugh and the three quid of course. KGV was the only one of the class to have Type 279 air warning radar, and from almost as far as the eye could see, the mast head configuration could be distinguished from that of Type 281, which was fitted to the others."

The 279 did get duplexing after 1941-42, so it's possible that the 279 and the 281 could both have been fitted. The duplexing versions of Type 279 were most needed aboard the carriers however, and they had higher priority for the modified sets.

I see.
Thanks for that interesting account, I've never read it before.

Bgile wrote: Surface search range is horizon limited, so power isn't as important.

Unless one is using the power to burn through jamming. Which then begs the question, did the Axis have any effective Radar Jammers for use against maritime surface targets? If not, then my point is moot.