America’s Biggest False Alarm Causes Mass Hysteria in L.A.

Usually when an alarm goes off . . we take a minute to consider the possibilities so we don’t over react. But what if it comes on the heels on a world altering disaster? Can an entire city have PTSD? That’s what L.A. faced just 2 months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay, we've all dealt with false alarms, right, Maybe a
fire alarm is pulled in school, or your car or
house alarm goes off for no reason. But what happens
when a whole city faces a false alarm that has
the entire population in a panic. It's Los Angeles, early
nineteen forty two. I'm Patty Steele. What led to citywide hysteria?

(00:23):
That's next on the backstory? The backstory is back. First
of all, got to thank backstory listener Will Kushner from
West Orange, New Jersey for filling me in on this
interesting story. Yeah, we've all faced a false alarm, right.
It's kind of nerve racking, but depending on the circumstances,

(00:45):
it's easy to understand overreacting. It's a bit of PTSD.
Maybe it comes after an actual disaster that has people
skittish about what could happen next, similar to what folks
went through after nine to eleven. But that's really what
this story is about. It's in Los Angeles and it's
a night that shook the city to its core. Okay,

(01:07):
let's take a look at where the nation was in
February of nineteen forty two. It was just a couple
of months since the US had literally been shocked into
World War II with the early Sunday morning attack on
Pearl Harbor. It happened on the Hawaiian island of Oahu
on December seventh, nineteen forty one. Two thy four hundred

(01:28):
three people were killed, including sailors, soldiers, marines, and civilians.
At the time, the US was still a neutral country
in the war, so the attack was even more unexpected.
Two frantic months later, in February of nineteen forty two,
the shock hasn't even remotely begun to wear off. Plus,

(01:48):
now the US has declared war, so it's full steam ahead, right.
People are on edge, they're thinking what's ahead. A lot
of folks are sure that enemy air raids on the
US mainland are on the way. In fact, two days
after Pearl Harbor, just a rumor of approaching enemy aircraft
causes invasion panic in New York City, But the only

(02:10):
thing torpedo that day was the stock market. On the
West Coast. People mistook fishing boats, logs, and even whales
for Japanese warships and submarines. It didn't help that the
Secretary of War warned the public that US cities should
be prepared for what he called possible blows from enemy forces.

(02:31):
Now it's February twenty third, nineteen forty two, and a
Japanese sub has surfaced off the coast of Santa Barbara, California.
It fires about a dozen artillery shells at an oil
field and refinery. Nobody's heard, and there isn't a whole
lot of damage, but now the threat looks even more real.
The next day, nerves on edge leads to one of

(02:54):
the craziest home front incidents of the war. It's late
in the evening and naval intel Jens tells units on
the coast to ready themselves for a possible Japanese attack.
Everything stays calm for several hours, but you can imagine
the tension while you play that waiting game. Right Then,
just after two am on February twenty fifth, military radar

(03:18):
picks up what looks like some sort of enemy contact
over the water about one hundred and twenty miles west
of Los Angeles. Now, air raid sirens are going off
and a city wide blackout goes into effect. Within minutes,
troops man anti aircraft guns and sweep the skies with searchlights.
It must have looked incredible. Finally, just after three am,

(03:42):
the shooting starts. Following reports of an unidentified object in
the sky. Troops in Santa Monica start pumping out a
barrage of anti aircraft and machine gun fire. Soon other
coastal defense weapons begin to open fire. Stop and think
about what this looks like when you're already on edge.

(04:02):
Hundreds of powerful searchlights flashing through the sky, anti aircraft
AMMO everywhere with its deep orange explosive bursts. It seems
that Los Angeles is under attack and it's total chaos.
But if you look past the searchlights and exploding US AMMO,
it doesn't look like there are any planes, said one colonel.

(04:26):
Imagination could have easily disclosed many shapes in the sky
in the midst of that weird symphony of noise and color,
but we couldn't see planes of any type in the sky,
friendly or enemy for a while. That doesn't matter. People
are convinced, and reports pour in describing Japanese aircraft flying

(04:46):
in formation bombs, falling even enemy paratroopers. One report claims
that a Japanese plane has crash landed in the streets
of Hollywood. The barrage continues for over an hour by
the time time a final all clear order is given
later in the morning, LA's artillery batteries have fired over

(05:06):
fourteen hundred rounds of anti aircraft AMMO into the sky,
along with an uncounted amount of machine gun fire. But
it was only after the sun rose that American military
units realized there appeared to have been no enemy attack. Sure,
there were conflicting reports, but after a thorough investigation, it

(05:27):
was clear no bombs were dropped and no planes were
shot down. The only damage came from friendly fire. Shrapnel
from the anti aircraft barrage had rained down across the city,
shattering windows and a few homes that were damaged by
artillery shells, but there were no serious injuries from the shootout. Unfortunately,

(05:48):
at least five people died due to heart attacks and
car accidents that happened during the blackout. On top of that,
authorities arrested around twenty Japanese Americans for trying to signal
the enemy aircraft, which were of course nonexistent. That hysteria
accompanied the interment of one hundred and twenty thousand Japanese

(06:11):
Americans as ordered by President Roosevelt. That same week, at
the end of the day, it seems jittery nerves were
to blame. Look, it's understandable. Problem is fear is a
really powerful component when it comes to making rash decisions
about what we think is going on around us. The
Japanese military later said it had never flown aircraft over

(06:34):
LA during World War II. So then there were the
conspiracy theorists who blamed the government, and even visits by
UFOs and extraterrestrials. When documenting all of this in nineteen
forty nine, the US Coastal Artillery said a meteorological balloon
was sent up at one am that night, and it

(06:55):
seems to have started all the shooting. They said, once
the firing started, imagine created all kinds of targets in
the sky, and everybody joined in. When all was said
and done, it was time to pause and take a
deep breath. The Great Los Angeles Air Raid, as they
called it, appears to have been a case of war nerves. Again.

(07:17):
I want to thank Will Kushner of West Orange, New
Jersey for letting me know about this wild story. I
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(07:38):
Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele.
The Backstory is a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the
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(08:00):
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