After a careful search, Johnson detected a wisp of smoke near Wheeler Ridge, which ran east and west between the Mount Emily and Bear Wallow lookouts. Johnson was also ordered to proceed to the suspected fire, where he joined Gardner. They discovered a broad circle of smoldering fire scattered over an area about 60 feet across, with a small crater near the center. Johnson notified his headquarters at 4:20 p.m. By 5:40 p.m., Johnson and Gardener had gathered fragments of a metal casing and thermite pellets were scattered in the vicinity of the fire.

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Johnson remained at the scene overnight, where he was joined the next day by other forest rangers. Together they collected more than 65 pounds of bomb fragments, now identified by markings on the casing as Japanese. These were delivered that night to the U.S. Army detachment at Brookings, where Army officers and an FBI agent eagerly awaited them for examination. The Army had previously been alerted to a possible bombing attack when a soldier coming off duty at an observation post on September 9 reported seeing an unidentified plane come in from seaward at 6 a.m. and heard one going out to sea about 6:30 a.m. Together the Army and the FBI concluded that Fujita’s bomb could have caused serious fires had not the forest been wet with unreasonable rain and fog. Fortunately, a strict U.S. ban on the broadcast of weather information along the Pacific coast may have averted a more serious fire by preventing this intelligence from reaching I-25 offshore. American government officials attempted to keep Fujita’s September 9 bombing attack secret, but so many people knew or had heard about it that the effort proved futile. Newspaper and radio accounts of of the attempted fire bombing caused considerable public consternation and demands for more protection for the American Western states. As a result, four additional fighter aircraft were temporarily stationed near the Washington coast. In addition, the FBI conducted a fruitless search for Japanese floatplanes hidden on one or more of the numerous remote Northwest lakes. Finally, blackouts became more rigidly enforced all along the West Coast.

After returning to I-25, Fujita was more determined than ever to drop the four remaining incendiary bombs carried aboard the submarine. Captain Tagami shared his enthusiasm. He advised his pilot, “We’ll make the next one a night attack, Fujita, for the Americans will be expecting another sunrise one.” True to his word, Tagami surfaced I-25 after midnight on September 29,1942, about 50 miles west of Cape Blanco. This time the entire west coast of Oregon, except for the Cape Blanco lighthouse, was blacked out. Fujita’s floatplane was catapulted into the darkness, and the pilot flew east beyond the Cape Blanco lighthouse for about half an hour before dropping the two incendiary bombs. Again Fujita was satisfied with the attack, as he observed two explosions of red fire in the forest below. In order to avoid detection, Fujita cut the Glen’s engine after passing the coastline and glided down to 1,000 feet before starting it again well out at sea, west of Cape Blanco. After some difficulty, Fujita located I-25 by an oil slick caused by a leak, and his plane was hoisted aboard.

Meanwhile, below in Oregon, a work crew of forest rangers was remodeling for winter occupation the Grassy Knob lookout station about seven miles east of Port Orford. At 5:22 a.m. they reported to ranger headquarters at Gold Beach the presence of an unidentified aircraft. Noise from the aircraft was described as like a “Model T with a rod out.” A fire-fighting patrol was sent out from Grassy Knob after daylight on September 29, but it found neither smoke nor any bomb debris during a fruitless two-day search. Neither of the incendiary bombs dropped by Fujita on his second attack has ever been found.

Bad weather and heavy seas precluded a final bombing attack with the remaining two bombs. Captain Tagami canceled the third mission, having decided to spend the rest of his patrol time in attacks on shipping. On October 11, I-25 fired her last torpedo and returned to Yokosuka, where Fujita discovered he was something of a national hero.

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