Enemy Offshore! Japan’s Secret War on North America’s West Coast
By Brendan Coyle and Melanie Arnis
Heritage, 142 pp., $9.95
When we think of the Japanese interest in the West Coast during the Second World war, we tend to think of the attack on the Estevan Point lighthouse in June 1942.
The attack from a submarine didn’t do much harm, directly at least. Several months later, a Russian freighter crashed into the rocks at Pachena Point because the lighthouses had been blacked out in response to the Estevan Point shelling.
That story is included in Enemy Offshore!, along with tales of much more serious attacks along the coast from California to the Aleutian Islands.
The Japanese struck, sometimes successfully, at ships all along the coast. They tried, without luck, to set some American forests on fire, using collapsible aircraft launched from submarines.
The most serious action took place in Alaska, and resulted in the deaths of thousands of servicemen, both American and Japanese.
The attacks along the coast might not have been a secret war, despite the subtitle’s claim, but they certainly have not had the attention given to the rest of the war in the Pacific. This book will help to rectify that.
Enemy Offshore! is the newest title in the Amazing Stories series, which includes almost 100 books on historical topics. They are aimed at young readers, but are suitable for all — and the low price ensures that the titles will sell well.
There are sure to be plenty of surprises in this book, because the scale of the Japanese effort is not well known.
From time to time, however, the authors stumble. One example is their reference to “Mr. Roland Bourke, a civilian employee of the naval service.”
His name wasn’t Roland, it was Rowland — as in Rowland Richard Louis Bourke, who had been awarded a Victoria Cross for his gallantry under fire in the First World War. He was also a recipient of the Distinguished Service Order and the French Legion of Honour, and is at rest in Royal Oak Burial Park in Saanich.
For the Second World War, Bourke helped organize the Fishermen’s Reserve and then went into active service with the Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve.
He was a Canadian hero. Someday, maybe, his name will grace the cover of a book in the Amazing Stories series. Until then, his contribution to the Canadian war effort should not be so easily dismissed.
George Pearkes, another VC from the First World War, is ignored, even though he was in charge of defences on the West Coast, and helped plan the action in the Aleutians.
It would have been nice to see more sources cited in Enemy Offshore! — but again, this book is not meant to be the definitive history of the Japanese war on our coast.
It is an introduction to the conflict. As a point of entry, it serves its purpose well.
The reviewer, the editor-in-chief of the Times Colonist, is the author of Making The News: A Times Colonist Look at 150 Years of History.
