In the months following the
Imperial Japanese Navy's
attack on Pearl Harbor in
Hawaii on December 7, 1941, and the United States' entry into
World War II the next day, public outrage and paranoia intensified across the country and especially on the
West Coast, where fears of a Japanese attack on or invasion of the U.S. continent were acknowledged as realistic possibilities. In
Juneau,
Alaska, residents were told to cover their windows for a nightly
blackout after rumors spread that Japanese submarines were lurking along the southeast Alaskan coast. Rumors that a Japanese
aircraft carrier was cruising off the coast of the
San Francisco Bay Area resulted in the city of
Oakland closing its schools and issuing a blackout;
civil defense sirens mounted on patrol cars from the
Oakland Police Department blared through the city, and
radio silence was ordered. The city of
Seattle also imposed a blackout of all buildings and vehicles, and owners who left the lights on in their buildings had their businesses smashed by a mob of 2,000 residents. The rumors were taken so seriously that 500
United States Army troops moved into the
Walt Disney Studios lot in
Burbank,
California, to defend the famed
Hollywood facility and nearby factories against enemy
sabotage or
air attacks. As the U.S. began mobilizing for the war,
anti-aircraft guns were installed, bunkers were built, and air raid precautions were drilled into the populace all over the country. Contributing to the paranoia was the fact that many American merchant ships were indeed attacked by Japanese submarines in waters off the West Coast, especially from the last half of December 1941 through February 1942: (escaped), (damaged), (escaped), (sank), (damaged),
SS H.M. Storey (escaped, sank later), (sank),
SS Camden (sank), (damaged), (sank), (sank), (escaped),
SS Connecticut (damaged), and
SS Idaho (minor damage). As the hysteria continued to mount, on 23 February 1942, at 7:15 pm, during one of President
Franklin D. Roosevelt's
fireside chats, surfaced near
Santa Barbara, California, and
shelled Ellwood Oil field in
Goleta. Although damage was minimal (only $500 in property damage (equivalent to $ in ) and no injuries) the attack had a profound effect on the public imagination, as West Coast residents came to believe that the Japanese could storm their beaches at any moment. (Less than four months later, Japanese forces
bombed Dutch Harbor in
Unalaska, Alaska, and
landed troops in the
Aleutian Islands of
Kiska and
Attu). ==Alarms raised==