In the early hours of 4 March 1942 two Japanese flying boats from the Marshall Islands, staging through French Frigate Shoals, raided Oahu in Operation K, a second strike at Pearl Harbor. Cloud hid the target, the bombs fell harmlessly near Honolulu, and the Americans began watching the shoals. On 4 March 1941 commandos raided Norway's Lofoten Islands.
Operation K
4 March 1942 · 84 years ago
A night flight over Oahu
Operation K, or the K Operation, as the Japanese called it, was a night flight over Pearl Harbor by long-range flying boats from the Marshall Islands. The US Army's official history calls it a night reconnaissance, Frederick D. Parker's history for the National Security Agency a minor armed reconnaissance, and the National World War II Museum a scouting mission to look at the American recovery from the attack of 7 December, with bombs added.1
The flying boats refueled from Japanese submarines at French Frigate Shoals, an atoll of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands; the Army history and the museum place the refueling on the way to Oahu, Parker on the return leg. American radio intelligence saw the raid coming: on 3 March the Pacific Fleet staff noted that “some kind of an offensive against the Hawaiian area, possibly tomorrow, employing large seaplanes and submarines based in the Marshalls” was indicated, and an alert went out to all forces.2
Bombs on Tantalus
Two flying boats reached Oahu in the early hours of 4 March, Hawaii time; Parker notes that in Japan it was already 5 March. Radar picked them up, and four pursuit planes went up but did not find them under the heavy overcast. One plane went no further than the west coast of Oahu. The other dropped four bombs at about 2:15 a.m., and they fell on the slopes of Mount Tantalus above Honolulu.3
Nobody was hurt, and the only damage was some broken windows. Both planes got back safely.4
Why it mattered at Midway
The Americans worked out that the planes had staged through French Frigate Shoals, and the Navy sent a ship to watch the atoll. In May 1942, before the attack on Midway, the Japanese planned another flight over Pearl Harbor by the same route. The submarine sent to refuel the flying boats found US Navy vessels at the shoals, and the operation was called off. Read more in our article on the Battle of Midway and our account of the attack on Pearl Harbor.5
Lofoten, 1941: the commandos land
Also on 4 March, in 1941, British commandos and Norwegian troops raided the Lofoten Islands in German-occupied Norway in Operation Claymore. The aim was to destroy the fish-oil factories that supplied the Germans, write Roskill's official naval history and the 1943 official account Combined Operations 1940-1942. Both name Brigadier J. C. Haydon as the military commander and Captain C. Caslon as commander of the five destroyers.6
The force entered Vestfjord in the small hours of 4 March, landed at four ports and met virtually no opposition. Factories were destroyed and ships sunk, among them the factory ship Hamburg of 9,780 tons. The raiders brought back over 200 German prisoners and over 300 Norwegian volunteers, and the force was home on 6 March.7
Also on this day
Battle of Pieskowa Skała
4 March 1863 · 163 years ago
Russian troops made a surprise night attack on Marian Langiewicz's insurgents of the January Uprising, resting at Pieskowa Skała castle on their way toward Galicia. The insurgents broke out and withdrew, while the Russians plundered the castle and killed those left behind.
