On This Day in History: February 24
The Battle of Los Angeles
The 2011 science fiction film Battle: Los Angeles scored 36% on Rotten Tomatoes; hopefully people have figured out that Aaron Eckhart is not leading-man-in-an-action-movie material. But the actual Battle of Los Angeles was even more stupid, and the dumbassery proved lethal.
--On This Day in History Shit Went Down: February 24, 1942--
In the months following the December 7, 1941 surprise attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor, Americans were freaked right the fuck out. I mean, the Japanese telegraphed that Hawaiʻi shit, but in one of the most epic intelligence failures in history, the U.S. was caught with its bathing suits down. They weren’t going to miss the next one. Everyone in the country was on high alert, especially those on the west coast.
The U.S. declared war on Japan the day after Pearl and began installing anti-aircraft guns and bunkers all up and down the coast. Regular air raid drills were conducted. Cities were blacked out and when merchant ships off the coast began getting sunk by Japanese submarines, everyone west of the Rockies was blowing blood vessels in anticipation of being blown to poop.
In the early evening of February 24, 1942, U.S. intelligence services said shit is gonna go down, Los Angeles, so be ready. They predicted an imminent attack by the Japanese. Later that night air raid sirens sounded, and a blackout was ordered. Then, the nerves got the best of the guys with their fingers on the triggers, and everything went to H E double hockey sticks.
Thousands of .50 caliber machine gun rounds were fired into the night sky at Japanese aircraft that weren’t fucking there. Not only that, but for an hour in the middle of the night 1,400 rounds of 12.8-pound anti-aircraft shells gave every seagull for miles an anxiety attack as they exploded above the city. The cacophony probably sent all the stray cats in southern California packing for the Mexican border.
Buildings and vehicles were damaged from falling shell fragments, but the five deaths that resulted were from indirect causes. The chaos caused three people to die in car accidents, and two more kicked the bucket from “Holy fucking shit it’s the apocalypse!” induced heart attacks.
Conspiracy theories as to the cause of the false alarm ran rampant. Over four decades later the U.S. Air Force finallycame up with the explanation that weather balloons caused the panic. Fucking weather balloons. Those things get blamed for lots of stuff.
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Fucking weather balloons.