Japanese Shells Hit California: War Hits U.S. Soil

A Japanese submarine surfaced less than a mile off the California coast on a February evening and began lobbing artillery shells at an oil refinery near Santa Barbara, marking the first attack on the American mainland since the War of 1812. The shelling of Ellwood on February 23, 1942, lasted about twenty minutes, caused minimal damage, and killed no one — but its psychological impact far exceeded its military significance. The I-17, a large fleet submarine commanded by Captain Nishino Kozo, had been patrolling the Pacific coast as part of Japan's effort to disrupt American shipping after Pearl Harbor. Nishino reportedly had a personal grudge against Ellwood — years earlier, while visiting as a merchant marine officer, he had allegedly slipped and fallen into a cactus patch near the oil field, an incident that produced laughter from American workers. Whether this story is apocryphal or not, the I-17 fired between sixteen and twenty-five shells from its deck gun at the Ellwood oil installations beginning around 7:15 p.m. Most shells missed their targets or failed to explode. One struck a derrick, another damaged a pump house, and a few hit the nearby ranch of a bewildered landowner. Total property damage was estimated at five hundred dollars. American coastal defenses were caught flat-footed; no military response materialized during the shelling, and the I-17 submerged and escaped without harm. The attack's real damage was psychological. Coming less than three months after Pearl Harbor and coinciding with President Roosevelt's fireside chat that very evening, the shelling amplified fears of a Japanese invasion of the West Coast. The following night, jittery antiaircraft gunners in Los Angeles opened fire on phantom aircraft in the infamous "Battle of Los Angeles." The Ellwood attack was later cited as justification for Japanese American internment, one of the most shameful episodes in American civil liberties history, though the actual threat it represented was negligible.