Departures of note

Nobuo Fujita, a sub-lieutenant in the Imperial Japanese Navy, flew the only enemy aircraft bombing of the contiguous United States during World War II. On September 9, 1942, he launched a Yokosuka E14Y floatplane from the submarine I-25 off the Oregon coast and dropped two incendiary bombs on Wheeler Ridge near Brookings, aiming to start forest fires that would divert U.S. military resources. The damp conditions limited the fire's spread, and U.S. Forest Service employees extinguished it. He flew a second sortie on September 29, but that bombing went unnoticed. These attacks were part of a strategy later echoed in Japan's fire balloon campaign.

Fujita had joined the navy in 1932 and became a pilot the following year. He served on I-25 during the attack on Pearl Harbor, though his plane malfunctioned and he could not participate in the planned reconnaissance. He later conducted reconnaissance flights over Australian, New Zealand, and Fijian harbors, and was on deck when I-25 shelled Fort Stevens, Oregon, in June 1942. After the Oregon bombings, he continued as a pilot, was promoted to ensign, and trained kamikaze pilots near the war's end, though he never flew a mission himself. He was demobilized as a sub-lieutenant.

After the war, Fujita opened a hardware store in Ibaraki Prefecture and later worked at a wire-making company. In 1962, the Brookings Jaycees invited him to the city, and he presented his family's 400-year-old katana as a gesture of friendship, having intended to use it for seppuku if arrested as a war criminal. His visit drew some controversy but was welcomed, and President John F. Kennedy congratulated the town. Fujita later co-sponsored a trip for three Brookings-Harbor High School students to Japan in 1985, despite his company's bankruptcy, and received a U.S. flag and a letter from President Ronald Reagan praising his kindness.

Fujita returned to Brookings in 1990, 1992, and 1995, planting a tree at the bomb site in 1992 and helping raise funds for the local library. He was named an honorary citizen while hospitalized for lung cancer in Tsuchiura, Japan, and died on September 30, 1997, at age 85. In October 1998, his daughter Yoriko Asakura buried some of his ashes at the bomb site, saying part of his soul would forever fly over Mount Emily.