September 9, 1942. A Japanese floatplane launches off the coast of Oregon to drop firebombs on the US mainland.
Fifty five years later, that exact Oregon town named him an honorary citizen.
His name was Nobuo Fujita.
At 30 years old, Warrant Officer Fujita became the only pilot in history to bomb the continental United States during wartime. Flying a tiny Yokosuka E14Y floatplane launched from the submarine I 25, he dropped two incendiary bombs over Wheeler Ridge near Brookings, Oregon. Rain soaked forests kept the flames small, and nobody was hurt.
Twenty years later, in 1962, the Junior Chamber of Commerce in Brookings came up with an unthinkable idea. They invited the man who bombed them to be the guest of honor at their Azalea Festival.
Fujita was terrified it was a trap.
Before boarding his flight to America, he packed his family's 400 year old samurai sword in his luggage. He promised himself that if the townspeople pelted him with rotten eggs or put him on trial as a war criminal, he would use the blade to take his own life in the traditional way.
It wasn't a trap.
Three thousand Americans lined the streets of Brookings to shake his hand and welcome him. Stunned by their grace, Fujita walked into the town hall and handed over his 400 year old family sword as a gift of peace.
Here's where it gets even deeper. Fujita never stopped paying the town back.
In 1985, he brought three students from Brookings to Japan at his own expense after his company went bankrupt. In the 1990s, when he heard Brookings was struggling to build a new public library, the elderly pilot mailed checks totaling 15,000 dollars from his modest savings.
In September 1997, Nobuo Fujita died of lung cancer in Japan at age 85. Days before he passed, Brookings made him an honorary citizen.
The following year, his daughter Yoriko flew to Oregon and buried a portion of his ashes at the exact bomb site in the forest, right beside a redwood seedling he had planted himself.
He flew to Oregon twice: once to burn their forest down, and once to plant a tree where his ashes now rest.