The Air-Raid Warden Was a Spy: And Other Tales From Home-Front America in World War II Read Online Free Page B
Author: William B. Breuer
Tags: History, World War II, Military, aVe4EvA
war plane was a few thousand miles away.
Early the next morning, the mayor and the president’s wife met with the California State Council of Defense, and La Guardia gave a fire-eating speech. California Governor Cuthbert Olson interrupted the speaker and said his aide in New York City was on the telephone with word that the Big Apple, as it was called, was under an alert and expecting a bombing attack.
Did La Guardia wish to speak to his aide? No, he replied, just tell him to follow the instructions already given. With that he continued his speech.
The closest German bomber was in France, more than three thousand miles from New York City.
When La Guardia returned to the East Coast, he was proud of the way New Yorkers had handled the air-raid alert. “City Nonchalant as Sirens Wail,” a New York Times headline exclaimed.
There was good reason for the easy going response. Few citizens had even heard the weak-toned and widely scattered sirens. 11
Watching for Enemy Paratroopers
I N WASHINGTON, the Office of Civilian Defense tried to bring order out of chaos, but it was fighting an uphill battle. Most communities, large and small, set up their own operations.
In Florida, the North Dade County Volunteers published a booklet called When the Sirens Scream. It was chiefly concerned with an attack by German paratroopers. “If there is any danger of having parachute drops from the skies,
A Covert Raid into Mexico 17
everyone must lock and mobilize his car as he leaves it,” citizens were warned. “We do not wish to provide transportation for the enemy.”
In Wake County, North Carolina, the Defense Council consisted of members of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Daughters of the American Colonists, Colonial Dames, and Daughters of the American Revolution. Ages ranged between the late forties and the early nineties. Presumably this group would defend the region against German paratroopers.
Vancouver, Washington, had among its messengers a blind man with a seeing-eye dog. In case of an attack, this man and his canine companion could make their way better than sighted people through blackouts and bomb rubble.
In California, the State Council of Defense accepted deaf people in various localities. It was reasoned that the enormous cacophony of exploding bombs and antiaircraft-gun shells would make normal conversation difficult or impossible. So the deaf member’s ability to read lips would be most helpful.
One dark night the air-raid siren screamed in Smithville, Georgia. The town promptly blacked out, and volunteer firemen rushed to their appointed civil-defense posts. So dedicated were they to this task that a large building burned to the ground when the firefighters refused to leave their assigned posts.
Enemy paratroopers were a deep concern of many California residents. State Attorney General Earl Warren was inundated by letters in which citizens wanted to know if it was legal to shoot the intruders from the sky. Warren’s legal opinion: fire away.
Across the land in these early weeks of America at war there were countless false alerts. One of these, at San Pedro, California, triggered near panic in that city. Just as a flight of U.S. fighter planes winged overhead on a black night, a thunderclap and lightning bolt rocked the region. Hundreds of people rushed for basements and other shelter and braced for an expected rain of bombs. 12
A Covert Raid into Mexico
A T THE HEADQUARTERS of the Western Defense Command at the Presidio, outside San Francisco, Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt was burdened by an awesome task: security for an enormous stretch of real estate that stretched from Alaska southward to the Mexican border.
DeWitt was sixty years of age, and leadership of the Western Defense Command was to be his final assignment before retirement. Mild mannered in appearance, the general was hard-nosed, a no-nonsense, outspoken type. Two days after Pearl Harbor, DeWitt publicly blasted San Francisco
Early the next morning, the mayor and the president’s wife met with the California State Council of Defense, and La Guardia gave a fire-eating speech. California Governor Cuthbert Olson interrupted the speaker and said his aide in New York City was on the telephone with word that the Big Apple, as it was called, was under an alert and expecting a bombing attack.
Did La Guardia wish to speak to his aide? No, he replied, just tell him to follow the instructions already given. With that he continued his speech.
The closest German bomber was in France, more than three thousand miles from New York City.
When La Guardia returned to the East Coast, he was proud of the way New Yorkers had handled the air-raid alert. “City Nonchalant as Sirens Wail,” a New York Times headline exclaimed.
There was good reason for the easy going response. Few citizens had even heard the weak-toned and widely scattered sirens. 11
Watching for Enemy Paratroopers
I N WASHINGTON, the Office of Civilian Defense tried to bring order out of chaos, but it was fighting an uphill battle. Most communities, large and small, set up their own operations.
In Florida, the North Dade County Volunteers published a booklet called When the Sirens Scream. It was chiefly concerned with an attack by German paratroopers. “If there is any danger of having parachute drops from the skies,
A Covert Raid into Mexico 17
everyone must lock and mobilize his car as he leaves it,” citizens were warned. “We do not wish to provide transportation for the enemy.”
In Wake County, North Carolina, the Defense Council consisted of members of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Daughters of the American Colonists, Colonial Dames, and Daughters of the American Revolution. Ages ranged between the late forties and the early nineties. Presumably this group would defend the region against German paratroopers.
Vancouver, Washington, had among its messengers a blind man with a seeing-eye dog. In case of an attack, this man and his canine companion could make their way better than sighted people through blackouts and bomb rubble.
In California, the State Council of Defense accepted deaf people in various localities. It was reasoned that the enormous cacophony of exploding bombs and antiaircraft-gun shells would make normal conversation difficult or impossible. So the deaf member’s ability to read lips would be most helpful.
One dark night the air-raid siren screamed in Smithville, Georgia. The town promptly blacked out, and volunteer firemen rushed to their appointed civil-defense posts. So dedicated were they to this task that a large building burned to the ground when the firefighters refused to leave their assigned posts.
Enemy paratroopers were a deep concern of many California residents. State Attorney General Earl Warren was inundated by letters in which citizens wanted to know if it was legal to shoot the intruders from the sky. Warren’s legal opinion: fire away.
Across the land in these early weeks of America at war there were countless false alerts. One of these, at San Pedro, California, triggered near panic in that city. Just as a flight of U.S. fighter planes winged overhead on a black night, a thunderclap and lightning bolt rocked the region. Hundreds of people rushed for basements and other shelter and braced for an expected rain of bombs. 12
A Covert Raid into Mexico
A T THE HEADQUARTERS of the Western Defense Command at the Presidio, outside San Francisco, Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt was burdened by an awesome task: security for an enormous stretch of real estate that stretched from Alaska southward to the Mexican border.
DeWitt was sixty years of age, and leadership of the Western Defense Command was to be his final assignment before retirement. Mild mannered in appearance, the general was hard-nosed, a no-nonsense, outspoken type. Two days after Pearl Harbor, DeWitt publicly blasted San Francisco
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