Speaker 1: Okay, we've all dealt with false alarms, right, Maybe a
Speaker 1: fire alarm is pulled in school, or your car or
Speaker 1: house alarm goes off for no reason. But what happens
Speaker 1: when a whole city faces a false alarm that has
Speaker 1: the entire population in a panic. It's Los Angeles, early
Speaker 1: nineteen forty two. I'm Patty Steele. What led to citywide hysteria?
Speaker 1: That's next on the backstory? The backstory is back. First
Speaker 1: of all, got to thank backstory listener Will Kushner from
Speaker 1: West Orange, New Jersey for filling me in on this
Speaker 1: interesting story. Yeah, we've all faced a false alarm, right.
Speaker 1: It's kind of nerve racking, but depending on the circumstances,
Speaker 1: it's easy to understand overreacting. It's a bit of PTSD.
Speaker 1: Maybe it comes after an actual disaster that has people
Speaker 1: skittish about what could happen next, similar to what folks
Speaker 1: went through after nine to eleven. But that's really what
Speaker 1: this story is about. It's in Los Angeles and it's
Speaker 1: a night that shook the city to its core. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's take a look at where the nation was in
Speaker 1: February of nineteen forty two. It was just a couple
Speaker 1: of months since the US had literally been shocked into
Speaker 1: World War II with the early Sunday morning attack on
Speaker 1: Pearl Harbor. It happened on the Hawaiian island of Oahu
Speaker 1: on December seventh, nineteen forty one. Two thy four hundred
Speaker 1: three people were killed, including sailors, soldiers, marines, and civilians.
Speaker 1: At the time, the US was still a neutral country
Speaker 1: in the war, so the attack was even more unexpected.
Speaker 1: Two frantic months later, in February of nineteen forty two,
Speaker 1: the shock hasn't even remotely begun to wear off. Plus,
Speaker 1: now the US has declared war, so it's full steam ahead, right.
Speaker 1: People are on edge, they're thinking what's ahead. A lot
Speaker 1: of folks are sure that enemy air raids on the
Speaker 1: US mainland are on the way. In fact, two days
Speaker 1: after Pearl Harbor, just a rumor of approaching enemy aircraft
Speaker 1: causes invasion panic in New York City, But the only
Speaker 1: thing torpedo that day was the stock market. On the
Speaker 1: West Coast. People mistook fishing boats, logs, and even whales
Speaker 1: for Japanese warships and submarines. It didn't help that the
Speaker 1: Secretary of War warned the public that US cities should
Speaker 1: be prepared for what he called possible blows from enemy forces.
Speaker 1: Now it's February twenty third, nineteen forty two, and a
Speaker 1: Japanese sub has surfaced off the coast of Santa Barbara, California.
Speaker 1: It fires about a dozen artillery shells at an oil
Speaker 1: field and refinery. Nobody's heard, and there isn't a whole
Speaker 1: lot of damage, but now the threat looks even more real.
Speaker 1: The next day, nerves on edge leads to one of
Speaker 1: the craziest home front incidents of the war. It's late
Speaker 1: in the evening and naval intel Jens tells units on
Speaker 1: the coast to ready themselves for a possible Japanese attack.
Speaker 1: Everything stays calm for several hours, but you can imagine
Speaker 1: the tension while you play that waiting game. Right Then,
Speaker 1: just after two am on February twenty fifth, military radar
Speaker 1: picks up what looks like some sort of enemy contact
Speaker 1: over the water about one hundred and twenty miles west
Speaker 1: of Los Angeles. Now, air raid sirens are going off
Speaker 1: and a city wide blackout goes into effect. Within minutes,
Speaker 1: troops man anti aircraft guns and sweep the skies with searchlights.
Speaker 1: It must have looked incredible. Finally, just after three am,
Speaker 1: the shooting starts. Following reports of an unidentified object in
Speaker 1: the sky. Troops in Santa Monica start pumping out a
Speaker 1: barrage of anti aircraft and machine gun fire. Soon other
Speaker 1: coastal defense weapons begin to open fire. Stop and think
Speaker 1: about what this looks like when you're already on edge.
Speaker 1: Hundreds of powerful searchlights flashing through the sky, anti aircraft
Speaker 1: AMMO everywhere with its deep orange explosive bursts. It seems
Speaker 1: that Los Angeles is under attack and it's total chaos.
Speaker 1: But if you look past the searchlights and exploding US AMMO,
Speaker 1: it doesn't look like there are any planes, said one colonel.
Speaker 1: Imagination could have easily disclosed many shapes in the sky
Speaker 1: in the midst of that weird symphony of noise and color,
Speaker 1: but we couldn't see planes of any type in the sky,
Speaker 1: friendly or enemy for a while. That doesn't matter. People
Speaker 1: are convinced, and reports pour in describing Japanese aircraft flying
Speaker 1: in formation bombs, falling even enemy paratroopers. One report claims
Speaker 1: that a Japanese plane has crash landed in the streets
Speaker 1: of Hollywood. The barrage continues for over an hour by
Speaker 1: the time time a final all clear order is given
Speaker 1: later in the morning, LA's artillery batteries have fired over
Speaker 1: fourteen hundred rounds of anti aircraft AMMO into the sky,
Speaker 1: along with an uncounted amount of machine gun fire. But
Speaker 1: it was only after the sun rose that American military
Speaker 1: units realized there appeared to have been no enemy attack. Sure,
Speaker 1: there were conflicting reports, but after a thorough investigation, it
Speaker 1: was clear no bombs were dropped and no planes were
Speaker 1: shot down. The only damage came from friendly fire. Shrapnel
Speaker 1: from the anti aircraft barrage had rained down across the city,
Speaker 1: shattering windows and a few homes that were damaged by
Speaker 1: artillery shells, but there were no serious injuries from the shootout. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: at least five people died due to heart attacks and
Speaker 1: car accidents that happened during the blackout. On top of that,
Speaker 1: authorities arrested around twenty Japanese Americans for trying to signal
Speaker 1: the enemy aircraft, which were of course nonexistent. That hysteria
Speaker 1: accompanied the interment of one hundred and twenty thousand Japanese
Speaker 1: Americans as ordered by President Roosevelt. That same week, at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, it seems jittery nerves were
Speaker 1: to blame. Look, it's understandable. Problem is fear is a
Speaker 1: really powerful component when it comes to making rash decisions
Speaker 1: about what we think is going on around us. The
Speaker 1: Japanese military later said it had never flown aircraft over
Speaker 1: LA during World War II. So then there were the
Speaker 1: conspiracy theorists who blamed the government, and even visits by
Speaker 1: UFOs and extraterrestrials. When documenting all of this in nineteen
Speaker 1: forty nine, the US Coastal Artillery said a meteorological balloon
Speaker 1: was sent up at one am that night, and it
Speaker 1: seems to have started all the shooting. They said, once
Speaker 1: the firing started, imagine created all kinds of targets in
Speaker 1: the sky, and everybody joined in. When all was said
Speaker 1: and done, it was time to pause and take a
Speaker 1: deep breath. The Great Los Angeles Air Raid, as they
Speaker 1: called it, appears to have been a case of war nerves. Again.
Speaker 1: I want to thank Will Kushner of West Orange, New
Speaker 1: Jersey for letting me know about this wild story. I
Speaker 1: hope you like the backstory with Patty Steele. Please leave
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Speaker 1: a story you'd like me to cover? On Facebook, It's
Speaker 1: Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele.
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Speaker 1: Doug Fraser. Our writer Jay Kushner. We have new episodes
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Speaker 1: for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele, the pieces
Speaker 1: of history you didn't know you needed to know.