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Ben Peterson
Dedication I dedicate this book to my Mom, who helped make this what it is; my Grammy for inspiring me; and my documentary partner, Owen Daniels.
Cover: Devils Slide Front Devils Slide Right View
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Acknowledgements I’d like to thank my documentary partner Owen for all of the time and effort he put into this project and the people we interviewed for giving up their time to help me make this book what it is. I would also like to thank all of my Freestyle Academy teachers for providing the advice and tools needed to make a project of this size. Special thanks to Kris Peterson for editing and giving feedback on my paper.
Devils Slide ProďŹ le
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Table of Contents
9
Preface
11
Introduction
12
Mobilization
16
Wartime
20
Internment
24
Conclusion
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Works Cited
Preface The concept of the Freestyle Junior Documentary was introduced to me as a massive undertaking, one that would require not only a good subject but many hours of work. My idea to do a documentary on the bunkers along the California coast first came to me long before this year; however, when I drove along Highway One with my granma and saw the Devil’s Slide structure for the first time, I knew I someday wanted to make something that showed people not native to the coast the mystery of this strange building. Although this documentary was very challenging and introduced me to new concepts of writing and filmmaking, the concept and mystery of the bunkers drove me to create a project that would reveal their purpose and history. Once production started on our film and paper, this project, much like many of my other
projects, changed in both scope and focus. Despite the compelling imagery the bunker provides, it was only an observation station that never saw combat action. The motivation behind the bunker, however, was much more interesting, and so that was what I chose to focus on. This project, while not as difficult as past films I have made, required a lot more effort during post production to figure out how to take what four other people said and turn it into a cohesive story. Through this process I learned how to better tell a clear story, and while this project wasn’t the hardest to create, it improved me in ways writing a normal narrative wouldn’t have.
Previous Page: Pacifica Coast Point Montara Foundations
9
Introduction
“I
f you were to drive past it on Highway One, you would see a massive concrete block... covered with graffiti. And you’d think that somebody started a building project and then abandoned it” (Messner). An imposing, gray sentinel sits just off of Highway One, looking out over the Pacific Ocean. Its angular sides and prominent position immediately show it is not a natural formation, but man made. Known as the Devil’s Slide bunker, the ancient building sits solitary, contrasting sharply with the beach houses and cabanas that today cover the coastline. Further south lies another anomaly: the inconspicuous cement slabs and gun mounts that are all that is left of the Point Montara training camp, an area used by soldiers to practice with guns they would later man on destroyers. While they may seem incongruous today, 70 years ago the Devil’s Slide Bunker and Point Montara camp would have been one among hundreds of installations along California that together formed a coastal defense line for the United States during World War Two. The concrete sentinels that dot the coast of California are remnants of a fearful time when the vistas of the Pacific Ocean were not prime real estate, but areas vulnerable to enemy attack.
World War Two began for the United States on a day that would live in infamy: December 21st, 1941 (Navarro). The bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese shocked the United States out of its former neutrality and into action. Within days of the attack, the US was already beginning to draft soldiers, start wartime production, and mobilize existing troops. Part of this mobilization was the construction of hundreds of bunkers, observation stations, and troop centers like the ones visible today along the California coast. Driven by fear of another surprise attack by the Japanese, the US rapidly began to defend itself. Unfortunately, the fear that motivated the US to protect its coast against the external threat of the Japanese also led to untoward animosity against local Japanese populations. This kind of fear was not buried in the past like the foundations of our old coastal defenses, however. It continued on even after the threat of invasion had disappeared. Even after the war, this fear persisted towards different minorities. The instillations that remain along our coast are testaments to a past fear that endures in the way our country treats certain minority groups like Muslims and Mexicans. Bluff View
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Photo or Graphic Element
Chapter One
Mobilization
12
B
efore World War Two reached Pearl Harbor and before the line of bunkers were constructed, the attitude of California was much more detached from the conflict. In his book, Embattled Dreams, California historian Kevin Starr writes, “Californians talked of a thousand things, as people are want to do when enjoying life. The prospect of the war in Europe and Asia involving the United States must have surfaced in those conversations as an ominous motif, a grim possibility - but also as something for the future, to be postponed as long as possible… For the time being, however, California drifted through the 1940’s in a haze of distraction, its people focused on the satisfactions of daily life and the sheer miracle of being alive in a world focused on death” (33). Not yet marred by war, the attitude of Californians was positive and confident. While the rest of the world focused on the death and destruction the war brought, California was content on enjoying life far from the reach of violence. California was an oasis, isolated not only from the war politically, but also physically with the Pacific Ocean seemingly keeping the violence from overseas at bay. After the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, however, America scrambled to prepare itself for the war. Kevin Starr notes the panic that followed Pearl Harbor, writing, “As early as the afternoon of the seventh, within hours of the attack on Pearl Harbor, scenes prophetic of the next four years had been enacted as hundreds
of soldiers, sailors, and Marines, ordered back from leave, reported to their bases in a flurry of goodbyes to families and loved ones” (Starr). The US took mere hours to begin assembling their army. Whereas before the attack California lounged in its neutrality, now they were shocked into action. This abrupt change, driven by fear, also led people to give up comforts they would normally have enjoyed. The History Channel remarks on how fear affected Americans in World War 2: “This fear of attack translated into a ready acceptance by a majority of Americans of the need to sacrifice in order to achieve victory” (History.com). Due to the fear of another attack, Americans (Californians, specifically) were willing to give up what they had to defend themselves. Americans allowed things to be taken away that today we would consider a necessity in order to fend off an impending threat. David Cresson, a historian who was eight when World War Two reached the US, describes the rationing of the time, saying, “Gas was rationed, food was rationed, butter was not available. The fats were all going to our soldiers. So if you lived in the suburbs and had a backyard, you were growing your own vegetables to help the war effort” (Cresson). With food being shipped overseas to soldiers, Americans had to grow their own food to support the war effort. A wartime mentality spread quickly following Pearl Harbor, which, fueled by fear, led to the rapid mobilization of both the army and civilian populations alike. A string of coastal defenses, including the Devil’s
The military was here by the thousands as soon as Pearl Harbor was hit
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Slide Bunker and Point Montara camp, were constructed as part of this mobilization. While the Devil’s Slide installation may appear solitary today, in 1940 it was part of a much bigger string of defenses. Local history teacher David Messner summarizes the purpose of the Devil’s Slide bunker as “ an observation port for people to see if there were any Japanese aircraft or any Japanese ships headed towards the west coast” (Messner). Even though today Devil’s Slide appears menacing and imposing, it was meant only as an observation point that an even bigger base would remain in contact with in order to be prepared to shoot down any approaching boats or planes. A soldier watching out over the water from Devil’s Slide would only have to look down and to the left in order to see the next instillation along the coast: the Point Montara Training Camp. A local expert on the instillation, JQ Oeswein, says, “Point Montara was an aircraft training center was run by the U.S. Navy. It was a top secret military installation and they trained men here on the latest in any aircraft weapons technology.” Today the view over Point Montara reveals only a few concrete foundations and rusted out gun emplacements, but during World War Two, vital research and training was done here. The breakthrough technology of drones, radar, and the delayed fuse explosive round were all worked on at this location (Oeswein). While these installations were manned from Pearl Harbor to the end of the war, they could not have been built without the support of Americans for the war, and a pervasive atmosphere of fear that existed especially in California rallied support for the mobilization effort and construction of defenses. The King; Devils Slide Graffiti
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Chapter Two
Wartime 16
A
s war progressed, life in the US became much more tense. Fear of an attack didn’t fade, and the state most vulnerable to attack, California, remained as alert as the day following Pearl Harbor. One of the effects of this fear were blackout drills, which David Cresson describes:“You had to go out and buy these very thick curtains for all your windows and draw them… And it was just understood that you would be quiet and keep the lights out.”. Fearful of Japanese or German bombers spotting their towns, Americans would periodically have blackout drills where citizens would turn out all lights, stay indoors, and draw the curtains. While today’s schools have similar fire and earthquake drills in our schools, blackout drills in the 1940’s were motivated by a much more tangible threat: an intentional attack on American soil. The anxiety that drove Americans to hold blackout drills was omnipresent in the US, and developed into a pervasive atmosphere of fear. The California Military Museum remarks on the effects of the attack on Pearl Harbor: “These fears led to a series of immediate and unusual events in California. Martial law was declared on Terminal Island in Los Angeles Harbor where a major U.S. Naval base, important oil facilities, and a large ethnic Japanese community existed side-by-side. Soldiers from west coast Army posts, some of them only partially trained, were rushed to various points along the coast to prepare defenses against an invasion. California’s beaches were strung with miles upon miles of barbed wire. Coastal cities were blacked out and citizens sandbagged their homes
and businesses” (California and the Second World War). As America shifted into wartime, daily life became more defensive and cautious. Cities became forts, sensitive industrial areas were taken over by the army, and the coast began to resemble a border wall. Oeswein compares the fear of World War Two to the fear following 9/11: “This was a major event similar to I guess what 9/11 would be in your lifetime. We were attacked and we had to respond… there was fear that persisted throughout this war.”After the shock of Pearl Harbor, the US began to settle into a new style of life: a more fearful one. Similar to how the attacks of 9/11 brought a greater fear of terrorism and new security measures to US airports, World War Two brought a greater fear of Japanese attack and more militarization to California. Another local history teacher, Frank Navarro, describes the climate of fear in California: “There was a great deal of fear in this war. People watched each other carefully” (Navarro). With fear came a greater suspicion of others. Due to the abruptness of the first surprise attack, Californians grew wary of anything they felt could be a danger. Both American Muslims post 9/11 and Japanese Americans post Pearl Harbor were persecuted despite being citizens; they were singled out based solely on the color of their skin. The pervasiveness of fear in World War Two in California would lead to a greater suspicion of any who might do harm, which in turn would lead to the violations of the rights of local Japanese Americans later in the war. Before dealing with the topic of the mistreatment of the
We were attacked and we had to Respond
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Japanese Americans in World War Two and the continued mistreatment of minorities today, it is important to remind ourselves that, while fear may have run rampant, it was, at its core, justified. Oeswein describes America’s response to Pearl Harbor: “We were attacked and we had to respond.” To not feel fear in reaction to a swift and brutal surprise attack would not just be abnormal, it would be foolish. The fear we felt was a response to a real and aggressive threat. In fact, Pearl Harbor was not the only attack on US soil by the Japanese; the California coast was also periodically attacked by Japanese submarines. A local history group Mobile Ranger highlights the fact that there
were other attacks along the West Coast: “The country’s preparations were not for nothing. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, nine Japanese submarines were sent to the United States’ shores with orders to attack nine coastal towns and lighthouses up and down the Pacific coast” (Lautamo). The fear that drove California to the measures it took was not due to a single event like 9/11 or any other isolated incident today, but instead propagated by a continued assault on the coast. America was facing down a fierce sea power that had already demonstrated its ability to take large amounts of territory overseas. Messner describes the situation America faced: “Now you have to understand that in the first six months of 1942, we were still facing down a Japanese army and navy that had overrun the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies, Singapore and parts of China. And they’ve done that in almost no time. In addition, we were dealing with an American navy that was now short six or seven battleships because they’ve either been destroyed or they had been badly damaged at Pearl Harbor. So the genuine fear that people, particularly the military authorities, felt on the Pacific coast, was absolutely real because we, I don’t want to say we were defenseless, but we are certainly not a good position to defend ourselves as well as we could have before the attack on Pearl Harbor.” Left weakened by Pearl Harbor and facing down a country that had already conquered swaths of territory, the United States faced a very real possibility of an armada capturing the California coastline. This reality was what caused fear to spread so quickly along the coast, to lead to the rapid mobilization of troops, and to spur the construction of a coastal defense system. While today threats of terrorism or internal violence aren’t uncommon, the fear of the 1940’s was based on a much more tangible threat – one that had already attacked and continued to do so, one that flew under the flag of a blood red sun.
Chapter Three
Internment T
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he fear brought about by wartime, combined with previous animosities towards the Japanese, led to heavy discrimination in the name of national security. While the fear was justified, it ran rampant to the point where an entire group of Americans citizens were locked away on mere suspicion. Imagine the life of a young Japanese American boy alive at the outbreak of World War Two. All of a sudden, a far away attack in which he was in no way involved would change the life of this young boy. Prominent actor George Takei was in this very situation, and he describes this time in his life in an interview: “I remembered some people who lived across the street from our home as we were being taken away. When I was a teenager, I had many after-dinner conversations with my father about our internment. He told me that after we were taken away, they came to our house and took everything. We were literally stripped clean” (Takei). The internment movement was swift and uncompromising. Those that had immigrated from Japan, known as Issei, or had
Japanese parents, Nissei, were rounded up and sent to live in camps in the deserts of Nevada and Arizona (Foner). This internment was driven by the pervasive fear that originated from the attack on Pearl Harbor. Despite the fact that George Takei and tens of thousands like him were innocent, they were interned based solely on the fact that other Americans were frightened of what they might be able to do. This rapid internment was not unprecedented, however; unlike the bunkers which were quickly put in place, fear and racism against the Japanese had deep roots in California history. Even while California enjoyed their neutrality, there were still indicators of racism against the Japanese before the fear of World War Two would play a role. Starr again writes on some of the discriminatory practices carried out against Japanese before the outbreak of World War Two: “On May 6th the San Francisco School Board passed a measure placing all students of ‘Mongolian Descent’
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in a separate school. At the time, there were only 93 Japanese students in attendance out of a total school population of 25,000” (90). Even in the their safety of isolation from the war, California still harbored racist beliefs against the Japanese, even going to the extent of isolating the less than .4 percent of children that made up the state’s school population. The basis of racism is fear; fear of those different infecting a traditional way of life or somehow gaining an advantage, and even without a need to fear the Japanese overseas, California still feared the Japanese within its own borders. This fear would fester until World War Two finally reached the California shores in 1941. In addition to the Japanese being discriminated in schools, many Californians were fearful that the Japanese would take labor jobs that many white workers wanted. Messner describes the history of the Japanese, saying, “There had been suspicions of Japanese and Japanese Americans going way back to the beginning of the 20th century when they had come to the United States. Many of them to take jobs that we had made available by locking out the Chinese in 1882. So when the Japanese come, they were a new labor force. And unfortunately for them they’re treated much the same way that the Chinese were, the way the Mexicans were before them, the way the Indians were before them; they were seen as a threat to us economically and culturally” (Messner). The Japanese came seeking a new life, but were met with repression. After California’s hostilities towards the Chinese had led to them being blocked out, aggressions shifted to the next minority, the Japanese. Japanese families often held the position of highest earners in many communities, or at least were well off farmers, which bred a sense of jealousy among less successful Californians (Cresson). Much of the racism, even before Pearl Harbor, was driven by fear of a different race having any sort of advantage over the majority population. While Pearl Harbor was a traumatic event that led to rash wartime decisions, the final choice to lock away the Japanese was also based on past prejudices that had festered for decades. The internment movement in California was begun in 1942 by Executive Order 9066 (Foner), motivated by the previous hostilities towards Japanese and the climate of fear during the war. The racism that had brewed against the Japanese before the war was quickly exacerbated by the attack on Pearl Harbor. The success seen by many Japanese was envied by those around
It was
fear that stimulated the founding of those fortifications 22
them, and some would encourage internment to get land from the Japanese. Due to the policy that the Japanese could only bring small personal belongings to the camps, many were forced to sell their land at low prices to large companies eager to get land cheaply. These companies fed off the fear of the Japanese to get land cheaply (Navarro). As shown by the construction of the bunkers along Devil’s Slide and many of the other sacrifices made by Americans, fear played a big role in wartime California. As stated by Navarro, a former history teacher, “Americans were very careful with what they said. There was concern that some spy could get that information and transfer that information. There is a phrase, loose lips sink ships. So people watched carefully and the Japanese were of a different race, and that fear would play a role [in internment].” The atmosphere of fear in California had already led to the construction of bunkers to defend externally, and would later lead Californians to believe it was necessary to take measures to defend from within. Due to this fear, over 110,000 Japanese were uprooted and sent to camps (Foner); none of them ever convicted of anything besides being a different race.
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Conclusion T
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he bunkers that today stand empty are remnants of a past fear that can still be felt today. Author Sue Veres Royal describes the situation in the 1940’s that the Japanese faced: “The reality that those dangerous people had crossed vast ocean borders and struck at the heart of a superpower allowed a distorted narrative to be constructed that fell directly in line with precarious stereotypes— dehumanizing entire populations—as well as drastically narrowing policy decision making and public debate about if and how to respond to these attacks.” The Japanese nation had attacked us, and due to fear, our response was not only to defend our coasts but also to unlawfully intern a local population. Fear was unfairly focused onto innocent Americans. But what if I said Royal was not writing on World War 2 and the Japanese, but instead on 9/11 and Muslims.
While we may think the racism that drove internment is in the past, it still exists today; ready to flair up whenever another Pearl Harbor may occur. It is important to remember that internment had precursors which, while not extreme on their own, motivated the Japanese imprisonment after the disaster of Pearl Harbor. In addition to 9/11 demonstrating that persecution against other races, Donald Trump personifies the fear that many Americans still feel. Among his tens of thousands of tweets, Donald Trump has attacked Muslims, Mexicans, and Koreans, saying, “I love the Mexican people, but Mexico is not our friend. They’re killing us at the border and they’re killing us on jobs and trade. FIGHT!” (@ realDonaldTrump), and “There were people over in New Jersey that were watching it, a heavy Arab population,
that were cheering as the [Twin Towers] came down” (Trump). President Trump is not the cause, but a symptom of a fear that pervades our country. Whether it is fear of Mexican immigrants taking jobs or fear of Muslims attacking the American people, many still fear other ethnicities just as Californians feared the Japanese in 1940. President Trump is an indicator that we need to address and reconcile this fear, lest a disaster of Pearl Harbor scale triggers further persecution. We are improving; the attacks of 9/11 did lead to widespread distrust of Muslims, but they did not face near the same level of attack or internment local Japanese populations did. We have progressed, but there is still more we can do. As Oeswein states, “During World War II it was the Japanese that were easy to single out because they looked different …We have the same kinds of things today with people being afraid of other cultures Muslim cultures or even Mexicans. And again that’s there’s nothing new about that. Racism has always been with us. It’s very unfortunate. And hopefully someday we can overcome that.” While we have made great strides today, we still have more to go, and recently our country has seemingly moved backwards in eliminating this fear. Navarro supports this point in describing the similarities in Trump’s attitude towards Muslims and California’s attitude towards Japanese: “We tend to want to scapegoat people. Donald Trump and his executive orders trying to ban Muslims from certain countries is a form of scapegoating and telling that our problems come from outsiders and it really very much relates to what happened with the Japanese and how the Americans were fearful and we wanted to somehow get control of the situation by getting control of these Japanese.” The Devil’s Slide bunker sits as a testament and symbol of an older, more fearful time. Ever since the end of the ear in 1945, nature has done its job, the ocean waves and salty air wearing away at the harsh, gray concrete. Abandoned by the army, the bunker and the land around it has slowly eroded away. Like our fear, however, its foundations cling to the land, a stain on the otherwise beautiful California coast. Their usefulness outlived, the soldiers that occupied the old bunkers and training sites have long since gone home. Yet, like the empty foundations of those installations, our fear of those that are different still stands today, slowly eroding away, yet remaining nonetheless. 25
Works Cited “California and the Second World War.” California Military History: California and World War II, Webmaster, 8 Feb. 2016, www.militarymuseum.org/HistoryWWII.html. Cresson, David. Personal interview. 31 May. 2018. DYEBOB, editor. “Remember Pearl Harbor.” Hawai`i Chronicles III: World War Two in Hawai`i, from the Pages of Paradise of the Pacific, University of Hawai’i Press, 2000, pp. 44–44. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/ stable/j.ctt6wqr4b.15. (Pearl Harbor) Foner, Eric. “Give Me Liberty.” Give Me Liberty, 3e: W. W. Norton StudySpace, www.wwnorton.com/college/history/give-me-liberty3/. Lautamo, Ranger. “The Impact of WWII on the California Coast.” Mobile Ranger, 29 Dec. 2016, www.mobileranger.com/blog/the-impact-of-wwii-on-the-california-coast/. 25 Feb. 2018 Messner, Mike. Personal interview. 26 May. 2018. Morgan, Thomas D. “The Industrial Mobilization of World War II: America Goes to War.” Army History, no. 30, 1994, pp. 31–35. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26304207. Navarro, Frank. Personal interview. 5 May. 2014. Oeswein, JQ. Personal interview. 17 May. 2014. Royal, Sue Veres. “Fear, Rhetoric, and the ‘‘Other.’’” Race/Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contexts, vol. 4, no. 3, 2011, pp. 405–418. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/racethmulglocon.4.3.405. Takei, George. Staff, Bio. “Japanese Internment Camp Survivors: In Their Own Words (PHOTOS).”Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 16 Feb. 2017, www.biography.com/news/japanese-internmentsurvivors-stories-75th-anniversary-photos. “The U.S. Home Front During World War II.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 2010, www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/us-home-front-during-world-war-ii. March, 25 2018\ Trump, Donald. Hamedy, Saba. “All the Times Trump Has Insulted North Korea.” CNN, Cable News Network, 9 Mar. 2018, www.cnn.com/2017/09/22/politics/donald-trump-north-korea-insults-timeline/index.html. View of the Sea, Back Page, Golden Light
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About the Author Ben Peterson is a junior at Freestyle Academy and Mountain View High School. He enjoys reading, playing video games, and filmmaking. He hopes one day to extend this hobby of filmmaking in the industry and make it into a full time job. In the meantime, he works with friends, neighbors, and local startups producing videos. He lives in Mountain View with his Mom, Dad, brother, and dog. When he has time, Ben enjoys playing ping pong, either at home or at local clubs.
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emnants
r Check Out the Film Here!
Ben Peterson