> Workers on a nearby oil rig broke into guffaws at the sight of the proud commander having cactus spines plucked from his posterior. Then and there, the humiliated Nishino swore to get even.

Sounds like the damage was trivial, perhaps akin to plucking cactus spines from your rear end. I guess the commander "got even" in a very true sense.

This sounds like an urban legend designed to humiliate an enemy. Japanese records give a different reason for the attack:

>>"An ad hoc pow-wow is convened in officers' quarters to choose a suitable target, using a list of West Coast locations drafted prior to the aborted Christmas Eve shelling last year. The waterfront of San Francisco and the town of Castroville are among the rejected objectives. Lt Yamazaki Atsuo, engineering officer of I-17, finally suggests they bombard Ellwood's oilfields off Santa Barbara. His suggestion is approved, since it provides an easy access and escape route."<<

http://www.combinedfleet.com/I-17.htm

Edit: I also found this:

>>"Local legends, according to Hough, maintain that Nashino targeted Goleta because oil workers mocked him after he allegedly tripped and fell into a patch of cactuses in front of an off-duty working crew. After this humiliation and mockery, Nashino, an oil tanker captain at the time, swore revenge.

Hough said he disputes this legend entirely.

“He was a career naval officer and, thus, had never worked as a farmhand in Goleta,” Ken said. “The story of him being a captain of an oil tanker that stopped at Ellwood where he came ashore and fell into a cactus patch is not true. It’s a long told Santa Barbara legend, which may have happened to someone, but not to Captain Nishino.”"<<

http://dailynexus.com/2013-02-28/goleta-remembers-oil-field-...

Why would they want to shell Castroville? Something against artichokes? Was it a major place for Fort Ord troops in training to hit the bars? I can't find any WWII era military target there...

For all its coastline, there's relatively little of it that's of any strategic significance at all.

San Diego, Los Angeles - Long Beach. Malibu. Ventura. Santa Barbara. Pismo Beach. Big Sur. Carmel. Monterey. Castroville. Santa Cruz. Pacifica. San Francisco. Eureka-Arcata.

And that's along some 800 miles of coastline. Only the starred cities are of any particular size now, and most would have been far smaller during WWII. The Japanese may have chosen to avoid cities as they were more likely to be effectively defended.

Santa Barbara's oilfields would have been a modestly significant strategic target, though US oil facilities elsewhere, particularly in Texas, were vastly larger. California also had major inland fields near Bakersfield, Taft, and throughout the Los Angeles basin.

I have no idea. Castroville had a radio direction finder station during the war, but that didn't open until 1943. Maybe it was just a lightly defended place they could shell to cause panic?

The target was the oil fields, and the goal was to deprive the U.S. Navy of materiel (in this case, fuel).

Hence my question of why Castroville was a possible target. No oil fields, just lots of artichokes...

When I lived in Santa Barbara 15+ years ago one of the local barbers I went to claimed that he and a friend, I believe they were eight or nine at the time, were playing at a secluded section of the beach one day when all of a sudden a naked Japanese man ran past them. They immediately ran home and told their parents. Of course no one believed them. A few days later this attack occurred.

The guy had clippings from all the local newspapers of the event posted on the mirror by his chair. True or not it made for interesting conversation.

There were 3 seperate Japanese attacks on the US mainland. They were all pretty ineffective. http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/5-attacks-on-u-s-s...

What about the Japanese invasion of Alaska? Nearly 1500 Allied soldiers lost their lives.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleutian_Islands_Campaign

The Aleutian Islands are not part of the North American mainland.

If we were talking about talks on U.S. sovereign soil (is that what you meant?) we'd have to include Pearl Harbor as well.

Also, this source gives American casualties as 3,929 (!) of which only 549 (!!!) were combat casualties: http://ww2db.com/battle_spec.php?battle_id=20

Friendly fire and Japanese booby traps apparently account for most of the remainder. The most infamous friendly fire incidents occurred during Operation Cottage, when the US invaded an island that the Japanese had already abandoned two weeks earlier: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cottage

I'm not sure I'd qualify the Aleutian invasion as effective. At best it was a waste of men and materiel, and at worst it weakened the Japanese taskforce at the battle of Midway by two potentially decisive aircraft carriers.

Alaska isn't really considered "mainland" even today, and it wasn't granted statehood until after the war.

Interesting article. I found this in it:

The day before the withdrawal, the U.S. Navy fought an inconclusive and possibly meaningless Battle of the Pips 80 mi (70 nmi; 130 km) to the west. The Japanese may have been gone, but Allied casualties on Kiska nevertheless numbered 313.

You can find the full history of the submarine (I-17) as well as lots of other great information about the Imperial Japanese Navy here: http://www.combinedfleet.com/I-17.htm

More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardment_of_Ellwood

Was this the same incident that was parodied in the Spielberg/Belushi film 1941?

Wasn't one of the Blues Brothers named Ellwood?

Yes to both.

Actually, Elwood Blues, not Ellwood; Elwood was named after the Elwood Ordnance Plant, which made TNT and grenades during World War II.

Ellwood isn't a city, title seems misleading. The closest city is Goleta, CA. (I work at UCSB)