Not even three months after the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, Americans on the west coast thought they were under attack. Sirens sounded across Los Angeles in the early morning hours of Feb. 25, 1942. Within minutes, searchlights swept the sky while thousands of air raid wardens rushed to their posts. Then anxious gun crews unleashed hell.
For nearly an hour, anti-aircraft batteries fired a massive barrage that shook windows and rattled nerves across the city. Residents in bathrobes and pajamas went into their yards, looking up at bursting shells overhead. Others jumped out of bed and hid their families in sheds and basements. Some claimed they saw formations of planes, many claimed to have seen strange lights.
When the sun rose over L.A., nothing had been shot down. There were no bomb craters in the city. Yet, the Army had fired over a thousand shells into the sky and five people on the ground were dead.
Japanese Submarine Attack: Los Angeles on High Alert
After American entry into WWII, L.A. was a city on edge. Pearl Harbor shocked the nation. Many on the west coast felt that an enemy invasion could materialize at any moment…