The War at Our Doorstep
Written by Eric Avila
The Gold Rush of the 1850s brought waves of immigrants and migrants crashing upon the shores and mountains of California, leading to the rapid growth of San Francisco. The completion of the transcontinental railroad in the 1870s linked the state to national centers of trade and manufacturing, spurring the dramatic rise of Los Angeles. The prosperity of the 1920s brought yet another phase of economic and demographic expansion in California, and even the Great Depression of the 1930s brought desperately poor people to the state in search of a modicum of its fabled prosperity. On the eve of World War II, California had risen to attain its own distinct mythology based upon economic growth, urban development and perhaps most of all, good weather. But whatever reassurances Californians maintained prior to the War, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 would forever change California. Though the state had captured the national imagination since the days of the Forty Niners, World War II sparked an explosive phase of unprecedented economic and demographic growth that would eventually transform California into the nation’s wealthiest and most prosperous state, thrusting the state and its people headlong into an unending cycle of globalization, the consequences of which have yet to unfold.
Pearl Harbor changed everything for Californians. To some, it signaled the end of a certain innocence, much in the same way that the attack upon New York City on September 11, 2001 brought a dramatic shift in the national consciousness about the nation’s place in the world. We were now the enemy to some distant, unknown power who sought to destroy the prosperity and optimism that had become the hallmark of the American way of life. In 1941, Californians experienced that sentiment in more intense ways than their counterparts in other parts of the nation, facing the enemy across the Pacific. In the immediate aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack, Californians realized that not only were they about to be deeply implicated in the unfolding span of global conflict, but also that they themselves were now vulnerable to an enemy attack. San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco were coastal cities after all, and their accumulation of the state’s resources and population generated fears of their vulnerability. California’s mythic coastline, long celebrated for its expansive beaches and abundant sunshine, now assumed an aura of dread and anxiety as its dark waters hid the looming specter of a military invasion. In the weeks following the “day that shall live in infamy,” Californians underwent a state of high alert, as Japanese submarines suddenly appeared off the coastline, launching attacks upon commercial sea traffic. In the four-day period prior to Christmas, 1941, for example, six enemy submarine attacks upon U.S. oil tankers were reported. December 23, 1941 was a particularly terrifying day. First, a Japanese submarine torpedoed Union Oil’s S.S. Montebello, an 8,000-ton oil tanker en route to Vancouver, British Columbia. The 38-man crew managed to escape the wreckage, but the Montebello sank off the coast of San Simeon, California. Later in the day, the same submarine shelled a smaller tanker, the S.S. Idaho, in roughly the same location. Damaged but not destroyed, the Idaho and its crew found its’ was safely back to shore. Though these attacks inflicted substantial financial damage, their symbolism generated even greater psychic damage, inciting a wave of panic about the possibility of an attack upon mainland soil. Such fears were realized on February 23, 1942, when a Japanese submarine, under the command of Commander Kozo Nishiro, attacked the Ellwood oil production facilities at Goleta, just north of Santa Barbara. Although no casualties were reported and the damage was minimal, the attack signaled the disturbing possibility of a full-scale enemy invasion.
A heightened state of mass paranoia descended upon California. Weather balloons doubled as possible enemy attacks. Japanese American farmers, already suspect by virtue of their ancestry, were rumored to arrange crops in coded patterns that signaled incoming aircraft from Japan. Radio stations broadcast reports of enemy aircraft and submarine sightings. Newspapers like the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle spouted vicious attacks upon Japanese citizens and Japanese Americans alike. San Francisco and Los Angeles prepared for the worst, issuing curfews and blackouts, laying sandbags and securing portions for the city for military control. Meanwhile, millions of men and women passed through California in preparation for military service. Young men and women packed recruitment offices, eager to serve their country. California took front and center on the world’s stage as it prepared itself for war.
