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Posted on 12/08/2004 12:19:01 AM PST by SAMWolf
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 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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| Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel free to address their specific circumstances or whatever issues concern them in an atmosphere of peace, understanding, brotherhood and support. The FReeper Foxhole hopes to share with it's readers an open forum where we can learn about and discuss military history, military news and other topics of concern or interest to our readers be they Veteran's, Current Duty or anyone interested in what we have to offer. If the Foxhole makes someone appreciate, even a little, what others have sacrificed for us, then it has accomplished one of it's missions. We hope the Foxhole in some small way helps us to remember and honor those who came before us.
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Anxiety about a possible Japanese invasion of the West Coast caused anti-aircraft crews guarding Los Angeles to shoot first and ask questions later.  If U.S. coast and anti-aircraft defense units were on edge before, the incident of February 23, just a few months after Pearl Harbor, considerably heightened their tension. In fact, what happened that night 10 miles north of Santa Barbara contributed to what followed the next night in the skies over Los Angeles. At 2:25 a.m. on February 25, air raid sirens blared throughout parts of the "City of Angels." It was not the city's first air raid alert of the war. The most recent warning had been in effect earlier that night. None of these warnings, however, had ever gone beyond the yellow-alert stage. Yellow alerts were sounded when unidentified aircraft were detected. Of the dozen or so instances when yellow alerts had been announced, only two had gone to the red stage. Red alerts were serious business. Not only did they trigger air raid alarms, blackouts and radio silence, they sent some 10,000 air raid wardens and auxiliary police onto the streets. Anti-aircraft guns were manned and searchlights turned on. When an air raid defense radar picked up a mysterious contact shortly before 2 a.m. on February 25, the unknown contact was approximately 100 miles southwest of Los Angeles. By 2:07 it was officially declared an "unidentified aircraft approaching the coast" and a yellow alert was called. Fifteen minutes later, the blue alert signal was given. This indicated that presumed enemy aircraft were bearing down on the coast. Three minutes later, with the aircraft still unidentified, the red alert was given. Air raid sirens immediately began to sound, and wardens donned their white helmets and grabbed their flashlights. Two minutes later, radio silence was ordered. At 2:32, anti-aircraft and searchlight crews were at the manned-and-ready position. At 3:05, San Diego was given the red-alert warning, and radio communication between the two cities stopped five minutes later. The Los Angeles air raid was on.  Anti-aircraft guns from the IV Interceptor Command opened fire at 3:16 a.m., fired steadily until 3:36, stopped, then resumed at 4:05 for another 10 minutes. During their 30-minute fusillade, the command's guns hurled 1,440 rounds of 3-inch and 37mm ammunition into the night sky above Los Angeles. Not counting unofficial shots, 48 shells were fired per minute. And almost 10 tons of expended ammunition fell somewhere on the city during the supposed raid. According to the Los Angeles Examiner, "shrapnel-strewn areas took on the appearance of a huge Easter-egg hunt, [as] youngsters and grownups alike scrambled through streets and vacant lots, picking up and proudly comparing chunks of shrapnel fragments." Some of the 3-inch anti-aircraft shells had failed to explode in the air and hurtled back to earth. Young Mary Perez and her two brothers, walking through a familiar vacant lot on the way to school the next morning near Hawthorne, noticed two small craters that had not been there the day before. In just five minutes the two boys picked up more than a dozen jagged pieces of shrapnel and the detonators from two faulty 3-inch anti-aircraft shells that exploded when they hit the ground less than 100 yards from the Perez home.  M1941 60" Sperry Searchlight At the home of Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Landis a single faulty 3-inch shell blew up only when it hit the concrete driveway in front of the garage. When the shooting started, Mrs. Landis woke up her sister, Blanch Sedgwick, and 14-year-old niece, Josie, who were sleeping together in the guest bedroom, telling them to "come see what was happening." Seconds later the anti-aircraft shell hit the driveway, blowing out the windows of the garage and sending deadly chunks of shrapnel into the house—luckily just missing Sedgwick and her daughter. "When we went back into the bedroom," said Mrs. Landis, "we found one fragment of shell had cut clear through the blanket and mattress where my sister and niece were sleeping just moments before." A second shell exploded between two houses just east of the Landis home. Two pieces of jagged hot metal were blasted into the bedroom occupied by Selas Sakellaris' son, shattering the doorframe and striking the bed occupied by the boy. A third fragment crashed through the window of his daughter's bedroom, and a fourth ripped through the side of the garage, blowing out a tire on the family car. At Fred Watson's home in Santa Monica a shell hit the concrete driveway and, according to Mrs. Watson, "made a thunderous rumble, a terrific jar, and sounded like the screeching of a thousand wild animals" before burying itself 3 feet underground.  The next morning the Army had the entire street roped off, with a large sign at both ends warning "UNEXPLODED BOMB." After explosives expert Sergeant C.M. Weathers dug up the unexploded shell, a newspaper photographer asked, "Could you dust it off a little bit so I can take a picture?" "Would you like us to put a little sandpaper on it and blow us all to hell?" asked Weathers. "Never mind," said the photographer as he backed away, "that'll do just fine." Even when the anti-aircraft shells went off where they were supposed to, fragments of various sizes fell all over the city, including at shipyards and aircraft plants where late-night shifts were at work. According to the Los Angeles Examiner, 5,000 workers in the Calship Yard in San Pedro "scrambled to safety…when a sudden rain of anti-aircraft shell fragments showered down over the yards." Shipyard worker James Mason said that when the fragments started falling "we ducked for shelter in the hulls of ships, under them, anywhere we could get. We sure got out of the way in a hurry. By 8 the next morning, three of my buddies had picked up a tin hat full of shrapnel. By the time the graveyard shift clocked out, everyone went home with their pockets loaded."  At the North American Aviation plant in Inglewood, several workers who had gone outside to watch the spectacle had taken refuge under the wings of one of the many B-25s lining the field outside the factory. Some did not remain there long, however, as the sound of shrapnel fragments peppering the wings of the planes drove them back inside. The next morning several holes were found in the wings and fuselages of some of the planes where larger pieces of shrapnel had gone clear through their aluminum skins.
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Just finished reading today's Foxhole and my first thought was, IT'S L.A.!! What do you expect!" But then I realized those were serious times and LA . . . well, they tried.
"The numbers reported by civilian witnesses [were] as high as 50." Peter Jenkins of the Examiner's editorial staff wrote that he clearly saw "the 'V' formation of about 25 silvery planes overhead moving slowly across the sky toward Long Beach, apparently in search of the aircraft plants located there."
I live about 40 miles north of LA and feel qualified to comment on this. It was a 'V' formation but the silvery things were actually Canadian geese (blues, snows and speckled bellies) migrating South. In all likelyhood they were locked in on landing at Balboa Resevoir. You don't need fixed mount anti-aircraft to bring them down, just a 12gage on full choke with #5 shot will do it (hope I don't get into trouble if I admit I'm a water fowl hunter). ;^)
PS I'll be sending you an Freep mail on our feeder purchase later this evening.
No, I'm doing vinyl..
Live and learn with saw blades. Hardi planks are tough on blades.
Snippy and I are officially evil capitalists, we made our first sale today. Some lady came in and said she was "desparate for some bird seed". She bought a 20# bag of seed and 6 suet cakes. She also gave us a dollar bill to frame when we told her she was our first customer.
She was very patient as we tried to ring up her sale. The scanner wasn't picking up the items and we had to do it manually. We did find out that all product codes have to be even digits, of course about a quarter of ours were odd number. We spent the afternoon renumbering our inventory. ARGHHH!.
It sure feels good though. :-)
Back to work, or we won't be ready Friday.
We're planning on opening for business Friday morning.
When "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" came to Mpls the first 100 people got a coconut, I got one. Now you need to understand that I'd never heard of Monty Python but the title intrigued me. Needless to say I hurt myself laughing.
Coming out of the theater carrying my coconut, what's the first thing I see? Why this lovely young man dressed in a silk orange jumpsuit with the most DIVINE tangerine scarf .
The little vioce in my head said "Don't look up, just stare at the coconut and walk away and you might get home with your sanity intact.
We did find out that all product codes have to be even digits, of course about a quarter of ours were odd number. We spent the afternoon renumbering our inventory. ARGHHH!.
Remember Murphy was a optimist! :-)
Evening Aeronaut.
Evening E.G.C.
Rained all day, finally stopped tonight.
Evening GailA.
Snippy finally unchained me long enough to answer my pings.
Cool. Glad we could "fill in the blank" :-)
The fear of the late night phone call, especially if it was your turn on production support on-call. ;-) Those were always bad news.
Thanks for the bit of football trivia. Learned something new. :-)
Evening alfa6. Great shot of "California Cutie"
Evening Feather.
Evening PE. Been out of the news lately, who won the game?
On Saturday February 14, 2004 The Fort MacArthur Museum held its second annual commemoration of the “Great Los Angeles Air-Raid” of February 1942. In attendance were more than a dozen eyewitnesses to the original event who shared their experience from that night with the assembled crowd.
Computer analysis of extant photographic evidence has produced this enhanced image of one of the fifteen saucers over LA February 1942:
DeWalt makes flying saucers! WOW the things you learn here.
HE HE HE
Ya I had one of them there blades, wouldn't rip a staight line when I needed to cut around windows.
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
Once the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is not our friend.
Thanks Valin. Prayers on the way.
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