The wake up call came around 4 a.m. on a bright June day in 1942. While the rest of Vancouver Island slept, the crews of the bomb- and torpedo-carrying Beaufort bombers stationed at Pat Bay air base were briefed and ordered to stand by for immediate dispatch to intercept Japanese invaders.

Far out in the Pacific, a Japanese battle fleet, flush from its aircraft carrier triumphs at Pearl Harbour seven months earlier, was wheeling toward Midway Island and another day of destiny with the American navy. It was June 3, the day before the crucial Battle for Midway opened, that elements of the Japanese fleet including an aircraft carrier edged across the Great Circle Route of the Pacific to bomb Dutch Harbour in the Aleutian Island chain of Alaska.

In post-war histories, the Japanese threat to the continental U.S. and Canada is dismissed as a minor event. But back in 1942, it was ominous and real enough to cause the arbitrary removal from coastal areas of all residents, citizens or not, of Japanese descent.

The west coast of the Americas from Mexico to Alaska was understandably jittery. The Japanese military seemed as unstoppable in the Far East and Pacific as the German military machine in Europe and North Africa. And it was now swinging dangerously close to Alaska and British Columbia.

On May 31, the U.S. had ordered the battleships Colorado and Maryland to sea with their escorts. They would stand between the invaders and the mainland of North America, if the need arose. On June 6, the Japanese invaded and occupied Kiska in the Aleutians and the day following, neighbouring Attu.

Out at Pat Bay, the Beaufort squadron was fuelled, fully armed and ready to intervene, if and when the call came. Flying Officer Fred McLeod, now retired in Victoria, remembers the stand-by well and can still repeat the drill required before the four-man crew of his Beaufort released its torpedo. "The torpedo was meant to be dropped at 100 feet travelling at 100 knots," he recalls. "There was a small hatch in the deck of the Beaufort by which one could access the torpedo with a long key to change the depth setting according to the vessel we were attacking."

He also remembers the "sigh of relief" when they were ordered to stand down "because we knew there was little we could have done to stop a major attack force. And when it was over, the Wing Commander told me none of us would have returned. The Japanese Zeros (fighter aircraft) would have torn us to pieces. And dear old Victoria slumbered on blissfully unaware how close they had been to becoming a war casualty."

It may not be completely accurate to say Victoria was blissfully unaware dramatic events were happening. The city wasn't panicking, but it was nervously concerned. On June 2, the day before Pat Bay went on stand-by, the Colonist reported "four bodies have been recovered from the sea off Sidney Pier ... all air gunners in the RCAF ... from a Royal Air Force bomber which plunged into the sea." Pat Bay was a Commonwealth training base. Accidents were not unknown.

On June 4, "total radio silence" was ordered from Mexico to Alaska. On June 7, a U.S. freighter was torpedoed off Neah Bay, Wash.; on June 20, Estevan Point lighthouse on Vancouver Island's west coast was shelled to create a flurry of alarm. Schools stepped up air-raid drills. The once-remote war was getting close. It would be 14 months before West Coasters could fully relax.

On May 11, 1943, the U.S. returned to Attu and lost 579 soldiers, 1,148 wounded, 1,200 to "cold injuries," 614 to disease, and 318 to "booby traps and friendly fire" in the process of re-capture. On Aug. 17, a second invasion force, this time 34,426-strong, set out to retake Kiska. Included were 5,300 Canadian soldiers from 13 Canadian Infantry Brigade, as well as a component from the First Special Service Force known as "the devils brigade." Prior to the landing, Kiska was heavily and repeatedly bombed for days. When the troops crashed ashore, there were no casualties because the Japanese had withdrawn all troops without loss under cover of thick fog on July 18.

It would be two more years before the Second World War ended, but for the west coast of North America from Mexico to Alaska, it was basically over in the summer of '43, little more than a nervous year after it started with a call to battle stations at Pat Bay.