Before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese I-Class submarines sailed from Yokosuka by way of the Marshall Islands to positions off Hawaii and the coast of North America; five carried two-man midget submarines and eleven carried aircraft. Early on the morning of September 9, 1942, the submarine I-25 surfaced off Brookings, where its crew assembled a specially designed seaplane and launched pilot Nobuo Fujita and observer Shoji Okuda with two 170-pound incendiary bombs. Flying toward Cape Blanco Light, the plane crossed the coastline, followed a southeast course for about 50 miles, dropped its bombs on Wheeler Ridge, and became the first enemy aircraft to bomb the U.S. mainland. The Japanese hoped to ignite Pacific Northwest forests and cause panic, but unusually wet conditions and alert U.S. Forest Service lookouts on Mt. Emily and at Bear Wallow frustrated the effort; the fires were quickly extinguished, and 50 pounds of bomb fragments were turned over to U.S. military and FBI investigators. Twenty days later, I-25 again surfaced 50 miles west of Cape Blanco, and Fujita crossed the coastline near Port Orford; lookouts and ranchers along the Sixes River saw the plane, firefighters were sent out, but no fire or bomb debris was found. Fujita returned to Oregon in 1962 on a peaceful mission, and during Brookings' annual Azalea Festival he presented his 400-year-old Samurai-type sword to the mayor as the finest possible way of closing the story and pledging peace and friendship. He returned again in 1992 to plant a redwood seedling at the bombed site on the fiftieth anniversary of the attack.