Saturday Night Uforia - November, 2013
An American plane just after Pearl Harbor.
TWO-HUNDRED SEVENTY-FIVE miles north of Hawaii -- at 6:00 a.m., December 7, 1941 -- more than 350 Japanese bombers, torpedo planes and fighter aircraft launched from a Japanese strike force of six aircraft carriers heading towards the United States Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor. At 7:15 a.m. a second wave of 171 Japanese planes took to the sky to follow up on any targets which might have escaped destruction. By 9:55 that morning the attack was over, leaving nearly 2400 Americans dead and more than 1200 others wounded. It was, said President Roosevelt in his call to Congress for a declaration of war, a "date which will live in infamy."
Ten weeks later a wave of aircraft was reported to be first headed towards and then flying over Los Angeles. A blackout was ordered followed by an anti-aircraft barrage lighting up the sky. In later years it would be labeled 'The Battle of Los Angeles' and enter UFO lore as possibly the first encounter of the modern era.
But little-known to most, something very similar -- and perhaps even more curious -- would occur over San Francisco the day after the day of infamy, December 8, 1941.
San Francisco (upper third of photo), seen from the east, circa 1940. The lower two-thirds are the Alameda Naval Station. The Bay Bridge is the nearer one, while the Golden Gate Bridge is seen in the distance.
EVENTS BEGAN around 6:00 p.m. that evening, when radar picked up enemy aircraft -- dozens of them -- at 100 miles off the coast, heading in from the sea. From the December 9, 1941 edition of the Joplin, Missouri Globe...
Planes Off California, Is Report
General William O. Ryan Says They Approached Golden Gate, but Were Sighted and Driven Back.
San Francisco, Dec. 8 (AP) -- Brigadier General William Ord Ryan, of the Fourth interceptor command, said tonight that a large number of unidentified planes approached the Golden Gate tonight, but were sighted and driven back to sea.
"They came from the sea, were turned back and the navy has sent out three vessels to find where they came from," General Ryan said.
"I don't know how many planes there were, but there were a large number.
"They got up to the Golden Gate and then turned about and headed southwest."
Three Strange Hours
General Ryan was asked whether he thought they were Japanese bombers.
"Well, they weren't army planes, they weren't navy planes, and you can be sure they weren't civilian planes," he answered.
The general was asked if he was willing to be quoted directly.
"Certainly," he said.
The general's statement came at the end of three strange hours in which this city of 630,000 population -- 4,700 miles from Yokohama -- alternately believed it was in peril of immediate air assault, and that the blackout ordered by air raid wardens was merely practice.
Police who ordered the blackout at 6:20 p.m. announced at 7:30 p.m. that lights could be turned on again, but before many were relighted, a second blackout was decreed. The interceptor command said it had not lifted the blackout.
Guns Rushed To Water's Edge
Residents along Marina boulevard, fronting the bay near the Golden Gate, said 60 army trucks rushed anti-aircraft guns to the water's edge during the blackout.
The second warning that possible enemy aircraft were coming in from the Pacific ocean came from a spokesman at the Twelfth naval district headquarters 40 minutes after the first all-clear signal. Captain W.K. Kilpatrick, chief of staff, later disavowed the report, however. He declined to comment on whether there actually had been planes heard or sighted.
At Hamilton Field, a pursuit ship base 35 miles north of San Francisco, officials said no planes from there "have been shot down and we haven't shot down any." They would not say whether any of their ships were in the air, however.
The "all-clear" order came from the Brigadier General William Ord Ryan's Fourth interceptor command at Riverside.
The hastily summoned air raid wardens, many of whom enrolled only today, did not recognize the alarm as a practice test.
Householders in the Ingleside district said one warden ran through his area pounding on doors with a flashlight and ordering lights turned off.
While the sirens from neighborhood fire stations spread the alarm, huge searchlights went into action along the ocean beach, and planes that apparently were night fighters took to the air.
Reports Are Spread
Warnings were spread to the city through the police chief's office, which did not comment upon the plane report from the army.
"This information came to us from General Ryan of the interceptor division office," a spokesman at the chief's office said.
All calls to the interceptor division office were met with the operator's reply:
"Sorry. I can't give you any information."
Meantime, San Francisco radio stations went off the air.
A huge mobile anti-aircraft searchlight went into action at the San Francisco beach, its rays searching the sky.
Air raid warnings began to sound throughout the city at 6:50 p.m. as fire trucks were backed from their stalls, under a pre-arranged system, and sounded their sirens.
Lights Turned Out
Along Marina boulevard, a fashionable thoroughfare near the Presidio on the north side of San Francisco, soldiers caused householders to turn out their house lights.
Wilbur Sanders, Associated Press editor living in the Sunset district in the southwestern part of the city, said at 8:55 p.m. he heard the sound of many airplane engines.
The planes appeared to be heading seaward, Sanders said.
A few minutes after the first sirens were heard in outlying districts, others began joining in and a continuous wail filled the air.
Streetlights in the downtown area were turned off at 7 p.m. and restaurants and other business establishments blacked out.
After the first searchlight flared up at the beach, army air corps groundsmen from the Presidio brought 15 others into play. They lighted the skies along the western beach between the Golden Gate and the southern limits of the city.
The entire district south of Golden Gate park was blacked out, policemen going from house to house to get lights turned out.
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