BROOKINGS (AP) — In September 1942, a Japanese pilot flew toward Brookings. The goal was to start forest fires that would divert U.S. manpower during World War II.

A civilian spotter saw the aircraft coming, but pilot Nobuo Fujita managed to drop two bombs. It was damp, however, so they didn’t do much damage — except leave a crater.

The historic, though largely forgotten, event was remembered Thursday with the dedication of a hiking trail. The highlight of the revamped Wheeler Ridge Japanese Bombing Site trail is several interpretive panels that tell both the Japanese and American sides of the story.

“What a wonderful world that our two nations have come together this way,” Lawson Inada, Oregon poet laureate, said at the unveiling of the $70,000 project.

The sides involved in the bombing had actually come together years earlier. The pilot returned to Brookings in the early 1960s at the invitation of the Brookings-Harbor Jaycees and served as grand marshal of the Azalea Festival. He also planted a “peace tree” at the site and donated a 400-year-old samurai sword that’s still on display in the library.

Researchers rediscovered the crater in 1972 after the U.S. Forest Service cut a crude trail. But hikers accidentally crushed the peace tree while looking for bomb fragments. Another peace tree was planted in 1992. Meanwhile, four Brookings High School students went to Japan as the pilot’s guests.

Forest Service employees talked about revamping the one-mile trail and keeping the long-lasting story of reconciliation alive.

Alumni of the Japanese Naval Academy who visited the site in 1998 donated $1,060, which went to make a redwood bench.

The Forest Service consulted historic records, books and the National Archives to compile the story and gather black-and-white photos and illustrations.

Fujita was named an honorary citizen of Brookings before his death in 1997. Some of Fujita’s ashes were spread near the Bombsite Redwood by his daughter.