In early 1941, the once-quiet Torrey Pines bluffs — a landscape of red-tailed hawks and the gliders of Charles Lindbergh’s soaring clubs — suddenly echoed with the rumble of construction.
In just a few short months, a sprawling wooden cantonment known locally as the “City of Wood” rose on the mesa above La Jolla. This was Camp Callan, a United States Army anti-aircraft and coast artillery replacement training center built to prepare troops for a war that increasingly felt inevitable.
A Surreal Arrival
Officially opened on Jan. 15, 1941, Camp Callan was named in honor of Maj. General Robert Emmet Callan was a decorated Coast Artillery officer with service in the Spanish-American War and World War I.
Construction began in late 1940 on land leased by the city of San Diego for just $1 a year, a testament to the community’s support for the war effort.
By March of that year, the first waves of trainees began arriving by train. Soldiers from across the United States disembarked on a nearby rail siding, stepping from snowy Midwest winters into California sunshine.
Local newspapers of the era reported the scene with a touch of genteel California charm: soldiers were welcomed with baskets of oranges from the Chamber of Commerce — fresh fruit in place of frozen fields.
One recruit, in a letter home, captured the tension and determination of those early days:
“We may be far from home, but every sunrise reminds us why we’re here. The guns may thunder, but I think of orange groves instead of battlefields.”
Life on the Edge…