Ha Fu 6 (japanese Submarine)

The reality of war was emphasized in December when a Japanese submarine using the radio call signal Ha Fu 6, after firing on the Canadian government lighthouse at Estevan Point, Vancouver Island, surfaced off Seaside, Oregon, and fired a number of shells from her 4.7 naval guns in the direction of Fort Stephens, headquarters for the Harbor Defenses of the Columbia. Although no damage was done, the Japanese submariners had the short-lived satisfaction of having subjected the United States continental territory to the first bombarding it had undergone since the War of 1812. The shelling also emphasized the fact that the fixed seacoast rifles and mortars of Spanish War vintage, which had been depended upon to guard the harbor entrances of the United States for so many years, were useless in modern warfare. Although the garrison at Fort Stevens was on 24-hour alert, as it had been for some weeks before Pearl Harbor, and the muzzles of the huge cannon swung grimly to track the submarine, the order to return the fi

Citation: Tacoma Public Library