By: Hasan Belgaumi, a HISTOYOUTH Writer
Imagine, in the dead of night, being startled awake by shrieking air sirens. Imagine there being no time to orient yourself and having to hurriedly scurry to the nearest bomb shelter while finding time to black out your windows. Imagine then sitting in a makeshift shelter underground, curled up, rocking back and forth, waiting for the barrage of guns and bombs to sound. But those guns and bombs never came. There was no enemy after all.
During the Second World War, millions in Europe had to endure its battles. In cities like London, air raid sirens blared out each and every night, followed by the blast of German bombs. Once the US joined the war, following the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Americans began to prepare themselves for bombing campaigns over their major cities, clenching in angst and waiting for the first sign of Japanese planes.
However, during the war, there were no battles in the mainland US. The closest the Japanese had come was during the Battle of Attu, on a remote island off the coast of Alaska.
Despite this, many Americans were convinced the Japanese were going to attack, and soon. The American west coast was especially vulnerable, being the closest to Japan on the American mainland. While the Japanese never did attack any American cities, Americans had reason to believe they would. About two months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, a Japanese submarine surfaced off the coast of Santa Barbara, California, and shelled an oil field. Although there were no deaths and minimal damage, the event brought many Americans' fears about a Japanese attack to a head.
The day after the shelling in Santa Barbara, Americans on the west coast were on edge. So when a military radar picked up something over the ocean at 2 a.m. on the 25th of February, 1942, Los Angeles prepared itself for the first mainland battle of the war. Air raid sirens went off as a blackout went into effect. Troops readied themselves with anti-aircraft guns, and the city prepared itself for a barrage of Japanese bombs. Reports came in from around the city of enemy paratroopers, falling bombs, and Japanese planes flying in formation.
But when the sun came up, the Angelinos discovered there was no sign of an enemy attack. The only damage had been caused by falling shrapnel from anti-aircraft guns, which broke some windows and ripped through buildings. During the whole ordeal, five people died from heart attacks and car accidents due to the chaos that followed the air raid sirens. It was almost as if there had been no enemy at all.
During the war, Americans were still puzzled as to what they were firing on that night. Media outlets across the country published contradictory new stories claiming a Japanese attack. However, after the war, the Japanese admitted they had never attacked any American cities. In 1983, the Office of Air Force History noted that meteorological balloons had been released prior to the 'attack'. Reports of Japanese planes and falling bombs were likely the anti-aircraft guns that American forces were firing in retaliation.
In the end, it was most likely weather balloons that forces on the west coast were firing on. Los Angeles had gone to war with balloons. While the story of the Battle of Los Angeles is an amusing one, the fear of living through a war is a real one. It's one that many of us have never had to face and an experience we can only imagine going through. Because while weather balloons may not be so scary, the sound of air raid sirens and the threat of an attack certainly are.
Works Cited
Andrews, Evan. “World War II’s Bizarre ‘Battle of Los Angeles.’” HISTORY.Com, 23 Feb. 2017, https://www.history.com/news/world-war-iis-bizarre-battle-of-los-angeles. Accessed 11 Mar. 2023.
Contributors to Wikimedia projects. “Battle of Attu.” Wikipedia, 20 Oct. 2022, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Attu. Accessed 11 Mar. 2023.
Image References
LA Times., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Battle_of_Los_Angeles_LATimes.jpg
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