| 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-... |