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Japanese Submarines Prowl the U.S. Pacific Coastline in 1941

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The nine submarines sent to shell the U.S. coast were all launched a year or two before the war began. With only slight differences, all had a range of approximately 15,000 miles, a surface speed of 23 1/2 knots, carried as many as 18 torpedoes, mounted a 5.5-inch deck gun, were over 355 feet long and carried a complement of 94 to 100 men.



Moments before Samoa crossed the bow of I-17, First Mate John Lehtonen, on watch at the time, spotted a dim light from the approaching enemy sub and yelled down to the captain, 'A submarine is attacking us!' Captain Nels Sinnes, who had been asleep, sat bolt upright in his bunk, quickly pulled on his pants and shirt, grabbed a life jacket and yelled into the crew's quarters for everyone to report to their lifeboat stations. As crewmen began tearing the canvas covers from the lifeboats, the Japanese opened up. 'Five shots were fired at us,' Captain Sinnes later recalled. 'One, apparently aimed at our radio antenna, burst in the air above the stern. Fragments fell to the deck.'

Captain Nishino, unsatisfied with the results of the shelling from his pitching deck, ordered a torpedo fired at 70 yards. Seconds later, as Sinnes recalled, 'We saw the telltale wake of a torpedo coming directly at us amidships. It was too late to do more than just wait for our destiny.



'The list was due to the fact that the engineers had been shifting water in the ballast tanks,' Sinnes explained. 'We also lost our No. 1 lifeboat a couple of days before in a storm, part of which was still hanging from its davit. He evidently thought…[we were] sinking on account of this and left us alone.'



Captain Clark Farrow, after first attempting to outrun the enemy raider, ordered 'full speed, and dumped ballast, but…had no chance to escape. We were rapidly overtaken. The sub was making 20 knots. I tried to get behind her but [the sub] reversed course and kept after us.'

Realizing the situation was hopeless, Farrow ordered his radio operator, W.S. Foote, to send an SOS, which he did, accompanied by the words, 'Under attack by enemy sub.' No sooner had the message been tapped out over the wireless than I-17 opened up with its deck gun, the first shot carrying away the radio antenna. Two more shots from the sub struck Emidio, one of which destroyed one of the lifeboats hanging in its davits on deck.

Farrow stopped the engines and hoisted a white flag, then ordered the crew to take to the lifeboats. 'Three of the crew–R.W. Pennington, Fred Potts and Stuart McGillivray–were attempting to launch one of the boats when a shell struck it, spilling them into the water,' said one of the crewmen later. 'Other lifeboats were put over the side to search for the three missing men, but we couldn't find them.'

With the exception of four men still on board and the three lost over the side, the remaining members of the 36-man crew quickly rowed away from the imperiled ship. About 10 minutes later, after a parting shot in the direction of the lifeboats, I-17 abruptly submerged. A couple of minutes later the reason for its sudden disappearance became apparent. 'It may have been 10 or 15 minutes after the SOS when two U.S. bombers came roaring overhead from the coast,' said Farrow later. 'To us in the lifeboats it was a welcome sight. One of the two planes, circling where the sub had gone down, dropped a depth charge. We couldn't tell if it hit it or not.'


'We were still looking at where the sub went down,' continued Farrow, 'when we saw its periscope slowly push up above the surface. While still partially submerged it fired a torpedo from 200 yards. We could see the trail as it sped straight for the ship. It struck with a loud explosion.'

On board Emidio, radioman Foote, who had quickly jury-rigged another antenna, was just preparing to send a second SOS when the torpedo hit. Undaunted by the blast, the dutiful wireless operator tapped out his SOS, added the words 'Torpedoed in the stern,' then calmly made his way to the main deck and jumped overboard.

The other men, oiler B.F. Moler, fireman Kenneth Kimes and 3rd engineer R.A. Winters–who had either ignored the order to abandon ship or were unaware of it–were still at their stations in the engine room when the torpedo struck. Astoundingly, Moler saw it penetrate the engine room bulkhead and pass so close to him that, as he told an examining medical officer the next day at the Eureka naval section base, 'I could have reached out and touched it. It exploded on the other side of the engine room and killed Kimes and Winters outright.' Despite three broken ribs and a punctured lung, Moler'somehow swam and climbed up to the upper deck and jumped overboard.' Both Moler and Foote were picked up by the lifeboats.

'Back came the planes as the sub sank out of sight again,' continued Farrow. 'One of them dropped another depth charge. There was a big blast and plenty of smoke. That may have hit her, we figured, for we didn't see her again.' Once again, however, the sub escaped damage. On February 23, 1942, I-17 would shell the Ellwood Oil Company refinery, 10 miles north of Santa Barbara–the first enemy shells to land on the continental United States in World War II.



'I ordered the helm hard to port and headed straight for [it],' said the captain, 'but when the second shot came, I put the helm hard over the starboard and presented my stern to the sub.'



'The sub didn't chase us into port exactly,' Captain Goncalves later recalled. 'We zigzagged around, maneuvering always to present the smallest target possible. The sub circled and dodged, trying to get broadside of us, but never succeeded. As we neared land and the sub fired the last of its eight shots–four of which splashed water onto the deck–it quickly submerged.'

On shore, several Monterey peninsula residents had unknowingly witnessed the chase. A story in the Monterey Herald that evening said, 'Scores of golfers playing seaside courses reported today they had observed the tanker with huge clouds of smoke pouring from her funnel, fleeing toward Santa Cruz and zigzagging wildly, but most of them thought little more about it.'






The other witness, who had binoculars, could see the submarine plainly. 'It was between the tanker and the shore when I saw it,' she said, 'less than two miles away. I saw what I thought were two torpedoes fired from the submarine at the ship, but they all went behind it. The tanker then went full speed ahead, with heavy black smoke pouring from her funnel.' Not long after that, planes arrived and dropped several bombs. 'They were so heavy that when they exploded they shook the ground where I was standing,' the woman continued. 'The explosions raised great columns of water.'





Still in her bed back in Cayucas, Mrs. Genardini was just about convinced the shooting was over when she was suddenly jarred by an explosion that, in her own words, 'nearly threw me on the floor.' The explosion was the concussion from a Japanese Long Lance torpedo that had exploded after missing Larry Doheney. With that, Matsumura broke off the chase and submerged. His frustration at being outrun by two American tankers in two days, however, would be more than made up for in less than two hours.



'I saw a dark outline on the water, close astern of us,' said the new captain later. 'Srez was right. It was the silhouette of a Jap submarine, a big fellow, possibly 300 feet long. I ordered the quartermaster at the wheel, John McIsaac, to zigzag. For 10 minutes we tried desperately to cheat the sub, but it was no use. She was too close…[and] let a torpedo go when we were broadside to her.'

'The torpedo smashed us square amidships,' said Srez, 'and there was a big blast and the ship shuddered and trembled and we knew she was done for.'

Fortunately for Montebello, the torpedo hit the only compartment not loaded with gasoline. 'The men wouldn't have had a chance if any other hold was hit,' said Eckstrom. But it did knock out the radio.

'The skipper was as cool as a snowdrift,' remembered Srez. 'He yelled an order to stand by the lifeboats and then an order to abandon ship, and there was something in the way he gave those orders that made us proud to be serving under him.'

As the crew responded by lowering the lifeboats, the Japanese opened fire with their deck gun at nearly point-blank range. 'The sub began shelling us,' continued Captain Eckstrom. 'There was from eight to 10 flashes. One hit the foremast, snapping it. Another whistled by my head so close I could have reached out and touched it. But there was no panic, no hysteria. We got all four lifeboats into the water. Splinters from one of the shells struck some of the boats, but by some kind of miracle, none of us was wounded.'

Despite the torpedoing, Eckstrom was not sure Montebello was going to sink, and he ordered his lifeboats 'to lie a short distance from the ship. But 45 minutes later, just as dawn was breaking, she went down.'


'Machine-gun bullets hit our boat,' said Srez, 'and she began leaking like a sieve. We began rowing shoreward, with some of us leaning on the oars for all we were worth and the others bailing.'

Fighting fatigue, rough water and a leaking boat, it was not until noon–some six hours after the sinking–that the six men literally hit the beach below the town of Cambria. 'We were caught in the surf,' Srez recalled, 'and the lifeboat capsized….Some of the boys were scratched up, and the captain nearly drowned.'


About four miles away, aboard the Navy subchaser USS Amethyst, on patrol off the Los Angeles Harbor entrance, lookouts were attracted by the blast, and the captain sounded general quarters one minute later. The note in the ship's log read: 'At 0625 sighted an explosion that threw smoke and spray approximately 300 feet into the air. At 0626 sounded general quarters. At 0730 secured from general quarters and set condition Baker.'

Amethyst went down for a 'look-see' but did not locate the enemy sub. Although

By 10:30, the freighter was off Point Fermin, whose famous 77-year-old lighthouse was clearly visible less than a mile away. Manning a coast artillery gun position on the point just below the lighthouse, Army Sergeant James Hedwood and his crew watched the ship as it passed. 'We were looking at the lumber schooner when suddenly we saw a fountain of water spout 100 feet into the air at the stern,' Hedwood recalled. The boat spun around some 220 degrees from the force of the blow, 'ending up with its stern to sea and its bow facing toward land.'

On board, Seaman Joseph Scott was the first to see the sub that got Absaroka. 'It was midmorning and all hands were up, when I looked off to starboard and saw a whale,' he recalled. 'At least I was about to say 'look over yonder, a whale,' when I changed my mind and yelled, 'There's a Jap submarine!'



'In those other torpedoings, as I recall 'em, there was always a bang or blast and a bump,' Scott continued. 'But this one was a sort of slow jar, with nothing but a rumble because she hit well below the waterline.'

Four men–Harry Greenwald, Marshall Mansfield, Herbert Stevens and Joseph Ryan–were working on the starboard side of Absaroka, routinely checking the lashings on the particularly heavy deckload of lumber she was carrying, moments before the torpedo struck. One of them glanced up in time to see the wake. 'Torpedo!' he yelled, pointing toward the stern of the ship. 'I knew [it] was going to miss us and broke into a grin,' said Greenwald. 'But my grin froze, because the second fish followed the first one quicker than it takes to tell it.'

The second torpedo struck with tremendous impact about 50 feet aft of the beam, knocking three of the four men into the sea. The fourth, Ryan, was able to ride out the blast, which, according to one observer, threw tons of lumber into the air 'as if a man were throwing matchsticks around.'

Amazingly, within a matter of seconds, Greenwald was back on deck after being thrown overboard. As he struggled to the surface after his sudden dunking, the rail over which he had just been hurled came close enough for him to grab. 'The ship [rolled] over so far from the explosion that her deck went underwater,' said Greenwald. 'I grabbed the rail as the ship shuddered and righted herself [and] was carried up as she swung back.' Mansfield pulled himself back on board by a rope.


Another man, oiler James O'Brien, who had been positioned a little farther forward when the torpedo hit, said that the blast 'knocked me off my feet and made me goofy for a minute. Because the sub had the glare behind her, we couldn't have had a chance to escape. She had a perfect target.'

Radio operator Walt Williams, in the communications shack on the aft end of the boat when the torpedo exploded, was thrown out of his chair onto the floor by the blast. Seconds later, Williams recalled, 'Captain Louie Pringle notified me to send out the SOS signal and the message that we'd been torpedoed. Two messages I didn't have to be told to send.'




One month later, in the January 26, 1942, issue of LIFE magazine, movie actress Jane Russell was featured in the full-page 'Picture of the Week,' standing in the tremendous hole in Absaroka's hull created by the Japanese torpedo. In the picture she is holding a poster that warns: 'A slip of the lip may sink a ship,' with the words 'may sink a ship' crossed out and the words 'may have sunk this ship' written in.


This article was written by Donald J. Young and originally appeared in the July 1998 issue of World War II magazine. For more great articles subscribe to World War II magazine today!

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12 Responses to “Japanese Submarines Prowl the U.S. Pacific Coastline in 1941”

  1. 1
    Art Dahlgren says:

    While in the Navy as bomb disposal, was called down to Moro Bay ( I thibk ) to ID parts of a torpedo, this was in 1959. It was a Jap White heas Piston driven, copoy of British. Some one said that a ship was torpoed in late 41 or early 42. one fish ran to the beach and detonated, one sunk to ocean floor and was recovered bt a fish boats drag net. Luckely the war head broke off. Does any one have a news report on the sinking or torpedo recovery?

  2. 2
    Don Ross says:

    I lived in San Luis Obispo and Pismo Beach. Was a Harbor Commissioner at Port San Luis (Avila Beach). A very tough old client of mine was a lady who had done some civilian shore watch duty during ths time (1941) somewhere near Estero Bay or Southwards towards San Luis Bay (didn't get the exact locale).

    She said that on one occasion, a Japanese sub surfaced near her watch location. Men came out and stood on the deck. She always had a 30-30 with her (even until her later years) and said she fired it at them, but they were a bit too far away for a good shot. The men scrambled back into the sub and it submerged.

    Seems she had seen I-21. Don't have any further details and she passed away in the mid-90's.

  3. 3
    Ben Ballinger says:

    I am currently reading a book titled " I Boat Captain. I was a bit skeptical about the claims. However, after reading this and other internet articles, I recommend the book as mostly factual and enlightening. Also, I can remember beachcoming as a 12 year old around Oxnard. We found flotsom and human remains on the beach, probably from I Boat operations.

  4. 4
    Michael Perata says:

    I arrived here after a news report on KGO-TV 7 about the Montebello being sunk in December 1941.

    This is fascinating. I knew the Oregon coast had been bombarded with shells from a submarine, but I was not aware of the activity off the California coast.

    As for the nine submarines in Hawai'i, I had heard about the mini-subs, but not the nine larger subs on patrol. Imagine what the war would have looked like if they had found the aircraft carriers.

  5. 5
    EDWARD F BARFF says:

    I have be so fasinated to read.about the sub attacks.along the northern calif. coast. In 1984..86 . I saw..a sub. hidden!in a small wilmington,ca. being secretly!! repaired. it had a red star..on the conning tower! no number!! it was cut in half. and seperated in front of the conning tower.with a soldier/gaurd,on top of each piece. holding Machine guns!!! it…was not! the B-427!

  6. 6
    Mark Brewer says:

    About 5-10 years ago I believe that I read an article in our local paper that recounted a story from a local that lived in Santa Cruz during WW2
    and said he recalled Japanese military coming ashore from a submarine off of Santa Cruz, in Santa Cruz at night, entering houses, and being scared of by civilians with weapons, possibly even shooting of Japanese soldiers. Can any one confirm this or add any information?

  7. 7
    Joseph F. says:

    On December 24, 1941, an unidentified Japanese mini-sub (80' in length approximately) was shelled by Battery F's 75 mm gun by the Coast Artillery at Fort MacArthur in San Pedro, CA. The wreck was discovered in 1959-1960 by divers exploring near a breakwater in the Redono area. The wreck was known in 1942, but I can find no information about the submarine in Japanese archives. Does anyone know of the identity of this submarine and from which mother sub or surface ship it was dispatched from? The I-21 was in the area on December 23, 1941. The I-17 was also nearby around this same time period. This is the only Japanese mini-sub reported in California waters and it deserves to be catalogued and included in future editions of books on this topic. The mystery is that this mission was apparently so secret, no records exist of it. It is a war grave in reasonably shallow water and should be properly identified as such.

  8. 8

    [...] Coast attacked eight merchant ships. Two ships were sunk, two damaged and six seamen were killed. A plan for all nine submarines to shell selected U.S. coastal cities on Christmas Eve was canceled at the [...]

  9. 9

    [...] the Pearl Harbor museum). Here is the story of the submarine attack that reached mainland waters: Japanese Submarines Prowl the U.S. Pacific Coastline in 1941 What you don't have is any actual evidence that there was any contact between Imperial Japanese [...]

  10. 10

    [...] after the Pearl Harbor attack, Japanese submarines began attacks on merchant ships off the U.S. West Coast. The American public's fear of an imminent Japanese invasion was palpable. Rumors of Japanese [...]

  11. 11

    [...] "Japanese Submarines Prowl the U.S. Pacific Coastline in 1941," History Net Staff, June 12, 2006, accessed on 6 December 2010 at: [...]

  12. 12

    [...] the war, Commander Kozo Nishino of the imperial Japanese Navy submarine I-17 commanded a merchant ship which had transported oil [...]

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