Forgotten: World War II's Battle for Los Angeles (As In Japan Attacked the U.S. Homeland)?

[TomSea]

Forgotten: World War II's Battle for Los Angeles (As In Japan Attacked the U.S. Homeland)?

Did this happen?
by Warfare History Network

Three Months after the United States was plunged into World War II with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the nation was on edge. From every theater the news was disheartening, and the citizens along the West Coast were particularly aware of their perceived vulnerability.

At 7:05 PM on the evening of February 23, 1942, the Japanese submarine I-17 surfaced off the coast of Santa Barbara, California, and for 20 minutes the crew fired numerous shells from the 5.5-inch deck gun. The target was the Ellwood Oil Field. The shelling inflicted minimal damage to installations along the shoreline and among a few oil wells, but the primary targets, gasoline storage facilities, went unscathed.

As a result of the shelling, military personnel and civilian volunteers who scanned the horizon from the water’s edge and watched the skies day and night were placed on high alert. The tension was palpable. Phantom sightings of Japanese warplanes, rumors of impending enemy air raids, and even speculation that hostile troops were preparing to land on the beaches of southern California were continual.

Read more at: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/forgotten-world-war-iis-battle-los-angeles-japan-attacked-us-homeland-50202

[PeteS in CA]

https://goletahistory.com/attack-on-ellwood/

Attack on Ellwood

At 7 PM on Feb. 23, 1942, Goleta residents were settling in to listen to President Franklin Roosevelt’s Fireside Chat on the radio. The Japanese had just attacked Pearl Harbor two and a half months earlier and tensions were high for folks living on the coast.

Meanwhile, a 365 foot long Japanese I-17 sub came to a stop off of the Ellwood coast. Commander Kozo Nishino had visited Ellwood many times before the war, loading crude oil in a navy tanker, so he was familiar with this coastline, especially one particular cactus plant. Nishino gave the order to prepare for action. A gun crew quickly took aim at a huge Richfield fuel tank just beyond the beach.

The submarine had cruised to the Santa Barbara Channel with orders to bombard the Ellwood oil installations near Goleta. Ellwood boasted one of the largest oil fields in California and, unlike San Francisco or Los Angeles, did not have a major military presence, making it an attractive target for the Japanese Navy. ...

Nishino ordered his men to fire at 7:15 pm, their first rounds landing close to one of the storage facilities. Most of the oil workers had gone home for the night, but the few that remained on duty heard the first rounds impact. They suspected an internal explosion, but a worker spotted the I-17 in the dark. An oiler named G. Brown later described the attacker as so big he thought it was a cruiser or destroyer, until he realized only one gun was firing. Nishino changed targets to a second storage tank. Brown and the others immediately called the police, but by this time Nishino’s men had fired several more rounds.

Wild shells landed on a nearby ranch. One round passed over Wheeler’s Inn, next to the classic filling station that still stands today, and owner Laurence Wheeler called the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s department. The deputy told Wheeler that warplanes would arrive shortly, but no planes came. A shell did strike the Ellwood Pier, damaging it slightly. A derrick and pump house were destroyed, while a catwalk was damaged.

Lots of pictures in this article from that time.

I-17 was ~1000 tons (>50%) larger than the USN's contemporary Gato class subs, and similar in size to the large Fletcher class destroyers. Besides its 140mm (5.5") deck gun and six 21" torpedo tubes in the bow, I-17 also carried a float plane for scouting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_submarine_I-17
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_B1_submarine
http://www.combinedfleet.com/type_b1.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_submarine_I-17

[dfwgator]

[truth_seeker]

Miles of "coastal wetlands," include ammo storage bunkers, gun emplacement bunkers etc.

There were submarine nets, across the entrance to Long Beach-Los Angeles Harbor.

Much of the greater Lost Angeles basin, was under night time blackout, lest the dirty Japs bomb there, too.

My folks and grandparents told of rations of gasoline, rubber, sugar etc.

There were military installations, aircraft builders from San Diego to Ventura.

(I guess a good bit more of the same in SF bay area.)