5/16/2023 0 Comments Alien invasion in new yorkOne dud careened into a Long Beach golf course, and several residents had their homes partially destroyed by 3-inch artillery shells. Anti-aircraft shrapnel rained down across the city, shattering windows and ripping through buildings. Ironically, the only damage during the “battle” had come from friendly fire. “Although reports were conflicting and every effort is being made to ascertain the facts, it is clear that no bombs were dropped and no planes were shot down,” read a statement from the Army’s Western Defense Command. It was only in the light of day that the American military units made a puzzling discovery: there appeared to have been no enemy attack. By the time a final “all-clear” order was given later that morning, Los Angeles’ artillery batteries had pumped over 1,400 rounds of anti-aircraft ammunition into the sky. The barrage eventually continued for over an hour. Naturally, all of us fellows were anxious to get our two-cents’ worth in and, when the command came, everybody cheered like a son of a gun.” “I could see six planes, and shells were bursting all around them. “I could barely see the planes, but they were up there all right,” a coastal artilleryman named Charles Patrick later wrote in a letter. There was even a claim of a Japanese plane crash landing in the streets of Hollywood. World War II-era anti-aircraft spotlights. Reports poured in from across the city describing Japanese aircraft flying in formation, bombs falling and enemy “But cold detachment disclosed no planes of any type in the sky-friendly or enemy.”įor others, however, the threat appeared to be very real. “Imagination could have easily disclosed many shapes in the sky in the midst of that weird symphony of noise and color,” Coastal Artillery Corps Colonel John G. It appeared that Los Angeles was under attack, yet many of those who looked skyward saw nothing but smoke and the glare of ack-ack fire. “Powerful searchlights from countless stations stabbed the sky with brilliant probing fingers,” the Los Angeles Times wrote, “while anti-aircraft batteries dotted the heavens with beautiful, if sinister, orange bursts of shrapnel.”Ĭhaos reigned over the next several minutes. Before long, many of the city’s other coastal defense weapons had joined in. Following reports of an unidentified object in the skies, troops in Santa Monica unleashed a barrage of anti-aircraft and. Within minutes, troops had manned anti-aircraft guns and begun sweeping the skies with searchlights. Air raid sirens sounded and a citywide blackout was put into effect. on February 25, military radar picked up what appeared to be an enemy contact some 120 miles west of Los Angeles. It began on the evening of February 24, 1942, when naval intelligence instructed units on the California coast to steel themselves for a potential Japanese attack.Īll remained calm for the next few hours, but shortly after 2 a.m. The day after the oil field raid, paranoia and itchy trigger fingers combined to produce one of the most unusual home front incidents of the war. Soldiers manning anti-aircraft guns in New York City.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |