BROOKINGS -- Sixty-six years after a Japanese pilot dropped two bombs on the southern Oregon coast during World War II, the historic if little-known event was remembered Thursday in a contemporary Northwest way: with the dedication of a hiking trail.
Because of heavy rain, the U.S. Forest Service unveiled the $70,000 project at the Chetco Community Library, instead of the trailhead an hour outside Brookings.
The highlight of the revamped Wheeler Ridge Japanese Bombing Site trail is several interpretive panels that aim to tell both the Japanese and American sides of the story.
Before dawn on Sept. 9, 1942, Japanese pilot Nobuo Fujita and a submarine crew surfaced off the coast, assembled a seaplane and flew toward the lumber town of Brookings. The goal was to start forest fires that would divert U.S. manpower.
A civilian spotter saw the Japanese aircraft coming, but the pilot managed to drop the bombs. Because it was damp that day, the bombing did little damage, and the smoldering remains were soon doused. But the 3-foot-deep crater remained, and the event sent a ripple across two nations and through generations.
The pilot returned to Brookings at the invitation of the Brookings-Harbor Jaycees and served as grand marshal of the Azalea Festival in 1962. He planted a "peace tree" at the site and donated a 400-year-old samurai sword still on display in the library.
Researchers rediscovered the crater in 1972 after the Forest Service cut a crude trail. But hikers accidentally crushed the peace tree while looking for bomb fragments. Another peace tree was planted, and more people trekked into the woods.
Meanwhile, four Brookings High School students went to Japan as the pilot's guests. The pilot's daughter brought some of his ashes to the bombing site after he died in 1997.
And Forest Service employees talked about revamping the one-mile trail and keeping the long-lasting story of reconciliation alive.
Alumni of the Japanese Naval Academy who visited the site in 1998 donated $1,060, which went to make a redwood bench. The Forest Service consulted historic records, books and the National Archives to compile the story and gather black-and-white photos and illustrations. An overlook platform is meant to keep hikers from what remains of the crater.
The result, said dedication ceremony speakers, is a testament to the human desire for peace.
"What a wonderful world that our two nations have come together this way," said Lawson Inada, Oregon poet laureate. The revamped trail may take on special meaning.
"Because of the physical effort, you might cease to talk and concentrate on the trail, and the idea of a pilgrimage might overtake you in your mind," he said. "And when you get to the site, you might be silent.
"And when you get back, you might be different."
-- Larry Bingham; firstname.lastname@example.org