The
Imperial Japanese Navy submarine , commanded by Akiji Tagami, had been assigned to sink enemy shipping and attack the enemy on land with its
14 cm deck gun. Transporting a
Yokosuka E14Y seaplane, the submarine was manned by a crew of 97. On 21 June 1942,
I-25 had entered U.S. coastal waters, following fishing boats to avoid the
mine fields in the area. Late that night,
Commander Tagami ordered his crew to surface his submarine at the mouth of the
Columbia River. His target was Fort Stevens, which dated to the
American Civil War and was armed with more or less obsolete
Endicott era artillery, including
mortars and several 10-inch gun M1888| and 6-inch gun M1897|
disappearing guns. Tagami ordered the deck gun crew to open fire on Fort Stevens' Battery Russell. Surprisingly, his shots were harmless, in part because the fort's commander, Colonel Carl S. Doney, ordered an immediate blackout. Doney also refused to permit his men to return fire, which would have revealed their position. Spotting the enemy gun flashes with a
depression position finder indicated the submarine was out of range. Most Japanese rounds landed in a nearby
baseball field or a
swamp, although one landed close to Battery Russell and another next to a concrete
pillbox. One round damaged several large
telephone cables, the only real damage that Tagami caused. A total of seventeen explosive shells were fired at the fort.
United States Army Air Forces planes on a training mission spotted the I-25 and called in her location for an
A-29 Hudson bomber to attack. The bomber found the target, but the I-25 successfully dodged the falling bombs and submerged undamaged. ==Aftermath==