[Kiwiwriter]

Originally posted by BrianP@Apr 14 2005, 10:16 AM


Guilty Pleasures

- 1941 - Inaccurate and all, but pretty funny

1941 has one point of accuracy: the panic state in Los Angeles right after Pearl Harbor and Lt. Gen. Joseph Stilwell being in command and being calm. The panic was immense. One congressman hysterically called up the White House, saying the Pacific Coast was indefensible, and demanded battle lines be established in the Rockie. Stilwell was in command at the time, before being sent back to China, and his diaries reveal his rage at both the low state of preparedness and the high panic. "What a wild, farcical, bundle of crap G-2 has put out," he wrote at one point. The panic reached its nadir in February 1942, when AA guns defending Los Angeles opened fire on what were thought to be enemy planes. They filled the sky with noise and lead, which set off more AA batteries opening fire, but no Japanese planes raided America that evening. A Japanese submarine did shell Santa Barbara, blasting a fuel pump, and my web page describes another hare-brained scheme to have Lt. Nobuo Fujtia fly a seaplane (from a submarine) over Oregon and drop bombs on forests to start a massive forest fire. This stunt failed, and nobody was hurt. But the panic state remained in California, and ultimately helped fuel the internment of the Nisei.