Southern California defenses [updated]

• Posted By: Scott Harrison
• Posted On: 10:59 p.m. | May 27, 2011

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the United States military increased defense preparations at all West Coast cities and ports. Los Angeles, with its major industry and aircraft manufacturing plants, was especially important to protect.

Los Angeles Times photographer Paul Calvert and writer John Cornell documented the U.S. Army fortifications and training around Southern California. Working with military censors, they were able to gain access to various Army units, but with major restrictions. The actual units and locations of bases could not be revealed.

Their work resulted in a three part series that was published in the Times on Jan. 15 – 17, 1942.

In part one, on Army underground preparations, John Cornell wrote about the Army restrictions:

All is calm in California, but beneath that calmness there is the sane, methodical doing of the things that must be done in an area designated by the Army as a theater of operations.

Californians have been made mildly aware of defense preparations by troop movements in their midst. Here is a page of pictures indicting the thoroughness with which this defense action is being carried out.

This is no “scare” story.

Far from it.

By no means does it offer either of the two taboos, aid or comfort, to the enemy. The adjacent photographs include no landmarks or insignias which might identify military units or positions, you’ll notice. They were made with Army sanction….

Although given all possible Army co-operation during our visits to the combat posts, we — The Times staff photographer, our officer-guide and myself — came close to ball ammunition and bayonet steel more than once.

“Evan a uniform and bars on your shoulders don’t mean you can walk into military areas now,” explained our officer after showing endless credentials the 10th time.

These are wartimes.

In part two, Cornell and Calvert covered an Army in transition, reporting on horseback cavalry and armored tank units. Within months, remaining cavalry units were disbanded.

The old and the new …

Cavalry troopers mounted on sleek horses; armored force fighters aboard roaring, clanking war tanks….

Both have their place in California’s present military preparation effort and the “on alert” status. And following the cavalry tradition, members of both arms evince the same dashing swashbuckling spirit.

As to the tanks?

No matter how dramatic they appear in photographs, you have to HEAR the monsters as they roar toward you to really appreciate how awesome they must be in actual combat.

This we saw can be described as “held in reserve somewhere in California.” We were permitted to photograph them because their training ground is unidentifiable. In fact, the Army’s official appellation for it is “a section of nondescript terrain”….

Through ditches and over sandbag barriers we saw the clattering giants roll. They did it with such ease — and with such speed — that as laymen we were lulled into thinking the terrain wasn’t so rough after all.

A friendly war tank helped pull our car out of the rough, fortunately. Three times.

The third and final section covered beach defenses and anti-aircraft units. Cornell wrote about those searchlight:

Probing searchlight beams swinging across the sky…

Because they’re right up there where you can see them, they doubtless arouse the interest of the California public more than any other single phase of actual military operations under current 24-hour alert conditions.

The beams are the cat eyes of our ack-ack marksmen, our anti-aircraft batteries. Photographs on this page will help explain their place in the defense picture….

Other pictures on this page show barbed wire entanglements and machine gun dugouts and trenches on a California beach.

The exist as evidence of the all-out precautions being taken by the Army against any action against strategic areas–even against the possibility of an attack or sabotage attempt from the sea.

The coast IS protected in every way possible. On the other hand — some published reports notwithstanding — there’s still plenty of beach open to sun-loving Southlanders.

A month after this series was published a Japanese submarine, on Feb. 23, 1942, shelled oil facilities near Santa Barbara. The next night, on Feb. 24-25, the Battle of L.A. occurred, in which 1,400 anti-aircraft shells were fired during what turned out to be a false alarm — there were no Japanese aircraft over Los Angeles.

Twenty-three photos by Times staff photographer Paul Calvert were published in the series. About fifty negatives from this series exist. They are split equally between the L.A. Times library and the Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive at UCLA.

The above photo gallery includes the best images from the series. The Army units and locations are unidentified because of Army censorship, but I suspect the cavalry unit was the 11th Cavalry that switched to motorized vehicles later in 1942.

Several of the 4×5 negatives had part of the emulsion removed – usually right at the horizon where known landmarks were probably visible. An example is in the above gallery. I suspect this was done at the request of military censors.

John Cornell was commissioned a lieutenant, junior grade in the U.S. Navy in December, 1942.

Times staff photographers Paul Calvert, Hugh Arnott, Gordon Wallace and Jack Herod, all lieutenants, entered the Army at the end of November, 1942.

Top photo: Army soldiers repair sandbag fortifications. Photo Paul Calvert/Los Angeles Times.

Middle photo: Light tank somewhere in the California desert. Photo: Paul Calvert/Los Angeles Times.

Bottom photo: Time exposure of anti-aircraft searchlight. Photo: Paul Calvert/Los Angeles Times.

[Updated in response to reader ck1's comment:

In response to a reader's comment, the print scanned for image 18 in the above gallery was inspected. After washing the print to remove the artists retouching, some of the "sound" equipment was found to be painted on.

There is no information available as to why this image was altered.

Because of poor newspaper reproduction, the Los Angeles Times employed artists to retouch prints to improve quality --  which was not done here.

The washed version of the image is reproduced below.]