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    San Francisco in World War II
    San Francisco in World War II
    San Francisco in World War II
    Ebook210 pages40 minutes

    San Francisco in World War II

    By John Garvey and California Center for Military History

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    Everything changed on the morning of December 7, 1941, and life in San Francisco was no exception. Flush with excitement and tourism in the wake of the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition, the city was stunned at the severity of the Pearl Harbor attack, and quickly settled into organized chaos with its new role as a major deployment center for the remainder of the war. "Frisco" teemed with servicemen and servicewomen during and after the conflict, forever changing the face of this waterfront city. Warships roamed the bay, and fearsome gun embankments appeared on the cliffs facing the sea, preparing to repel an invasion that never happened.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateSep 18, 2012
    ISBN9781439630990
    San Francisco in World War II
    Author

    John Garvey

    Culled from archives and private collections, this collection of vintage photographs pays tribute through the years to the woman and men behind the Star. Author and native San Franciscan John Garvey, whose ancestors served on the early force, is a graduate of the SFPD Citizens Police Academy.

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    • 4/5
      Somewhat hit-or-miss collection of photographs relating to San Francisco and the war effort during World War II. A great deal of it, in my view, isn't truly selected well, and the result is a bit thin, even by Images of America standards. Not particularly recommended.

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    San Francisco in World War II - John Garvey

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    INTRODUCTION

    The city of San Francisco became the gateway to the Pacific theater during World War II. But before the war, the city was a magical place. The Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge had opened, and Treasure Island hosted the 1939 World’s Fair, where Walt Disney offered a special Mickey Mouse film exhibit. Locals enjoyed watching the San Francisco Seals baseball team and spent sun-baked afternoons at the Playland at the Beach amusement park.

    But December 7, 1941, changed this tranquility. Schoolgirl Betty Vella went ice skating at Winterland the day after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. She knew everyone was scared, and her family was seriously considering moving inland to a family ranch near Livermore. They thought the Japanese were going to invade and even come out of the sewers. Blackouts soon began, and the city by the bay readied itself for war.

    World War II was a time when every American contributed—from the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines to the women and children on the home front who worked in defense plants and volunteered for the war effort in every way leading up to Victory Europe (V-E) Day in May 1945 and Victory Japan (V-J) Day in August 1945. People became scavengers, gathering scrap metal for war uses. Business owners donated trucks and steam shovels to move tons of beach sand to strategic points for use against incendiary bombs.

    The war impacted everyone in America, and most families had a son or daughter in the military. San Francisco and the Bay Area was certainly at the heart of it—more than 1.6 million service members shipped out for the Pacific from Treasure Island, from Alameda, or from Fort Mason in San Francisco. The bay was ringed with strategic shipyards.

    San Francisco was transformed in many ways. Greyhound buses were used to move residents of Japanese descent to inland locations. Books, tires, stoves, hot-water bottles, magazines, stretchers, cots, splints, and jams/jellies were collected at the Columbia Park Boys Club at 458 Guerrero Street. In 1942, the San Francisco War Show at Union Square dedicated a new underground garage that also became an air raid shelter. The Civilian Defense Council and the Win-the-War Committee sponsored United Service Organizations (USO) dances, radio broadcasts, and other methods of support. The Odd Fellows, like many other groups, sponsored an airplane. Civilian Defense Council wardens patrolled blocks, while volunteers watched for air raids. Thousands of people volunteered at fire and police stations, and Victory Garden activities helped increase food production on the home front. Schoolchildren practiced air-raid drills and built scale models to be used by Camp Roberts personnel at the antiaircraft range. Shortages of the times affected the availability of bread, butter, eggs, candy, fuel, and hosiery.

    Lt. Gen. John L. DeWitt issued orders out of Building 35 at the Presidio to have all Japanese Americans in the area report for removal. In all, nearly 100,000 Californians of Japanese descent were removed from their homes and livelihoods and interned during the war.

    The steamboats Delta King and Delta Queen were used for recruiting in San Francisco Bay. (They now ply the Mississippi and Sacramento Rivers.) Soldiers left from the Southern Pacific station at Third and Townsend Streets to go to Monterey for U.S. Army trains, and then on to war.

    The city had 30 air-raid sirens, set up in such places as San Francisco Junior College and Twin Peaks. There was also a searchlight at the top of Twin Peaks, and blackouts became common. Municipal-court fines were issued for violating regulations on dimming headlights. The threat of war reaching the home front was very real—Japanese aviator Nobuo Fujita had successfully bombed the mainland of the United States during World War II using a modular plane (delivered by submarine) to make two bombing runs in the Brookings, Oregon, area on September 9 and 23, 1942.

    The tide turned in April 1942, when the USS Hornet and 16 B-25 Mitchell bombers led by Maj. Jimmy Doolittle left the San Francisco Bay. Their target was Tokyo. The Battle of Midway and the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima added to the nation’s hope. In 1945, the USS Indianapolis would sail out under the Golden Gate Bridge with atomic bombs.

    The war dramatically changed the social, economic, and political environment of the mid-20th century. The communities that surround the San Francisco Bay were transformed by the events of the wartime era, and many still bear visible reminders in the form of military bases, coastal-defense fortifications, ships, and shipbuilding facilities. The U.S. Office on Censorship in San Francisco was closed after the war, but other offices and business opened as a result of the wartime commerce. Today there are various World War II memorials, including the Gold Star Mothers Plaque at the Veterans War Memorial building, the Holocaust Memorial, the Battle of the Bulge Memorial, and the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal Memorial at the USS San Francisco Memorial.

    This city by the bay was often the last American soil a soldier would see before being placed in harm’s way. Many ordinary citizens became patriots when they sailed

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