This article was originally published
in 1998 on the California Historic Route 66 Association website.
RED ALERT.... Enemy aircraft are over
Victor Valley!
Fortunately, no such call was ever made. Had it been, 1941 locals
were in intense training preparing to proteet their own. Many
valley citizens took crash courses studying silhouettes of enemy
and friendly planes in order to recognize both. All airships
overhead were reported immediately to the Fourth Interceptor
Command at Riverside's March Field. Hill tops, wooden towers
and strategically placed forest service trailers were largely
manned by civilians, men and women patriotically watching newly
troubled desert skies. During all seasons with every hour covered,
these
unpaid volunteers willingly stood long, thankless duty watches
armed with a telephone and perhaps borrowed binoculars.
Nine days before Pearl Harbor's sneak
attack, San Bernardino County had 800 Ground Observation Corps
personnel in training. All prepared for three days in the field,
army conducted maneuvers. The sky warning system was formed to
alert armed forces intelligence centers of enemy aircraft movements
in order to save life and adopt defensive measures. Some desert
volunteer groups were active, however, Helendale, Adelanto, Apple
Valley, Hesperia and Phelan displayed signs of needing leadership.
On the night of December 7, 1941, the
day Japan bombed Hawaii killing or wounding 3,681 Americans,
all the Southland was ordered blacked out. Victor Valley's Company
K, 3rd Regiment, California State Guard, led by Captain, later
Major, Ray H. Seals, notified everyone including motorists to
douse all lights. Sixty minutes passed before traffic on busy
route 66 had been stopped and the desert could be cloaked in
darkness. This first local war experience lasted three hours.
The Victorville vicinity blackout signal was one - two, minute
undulating wail from the fire department's siren accompanied
by a similar outcry from steam engine whistles in Santa Fe's
train yard. The all clear signal was a steady squeal from only
thc fire station's siren.
Prior to the war, unpaid state militia
men of all ages enlisted for home guard duties. Uniforms were
yet to be supplied and only a few state owned, M1917 rifles and
bayonets, including one clip of five bullets, had been issued.
Privately owned arms were plentiful and parts of Victor Valley
took on a Minute Man look copying scenes from the 1770's. Re-oiling
and scraping rust from weapons not cleaned in years became popular.
Captain Seals, de-moth balled his World War service pistol and
was seldom without it during this fresh call to arms.
Shy of men, State Guard units struggled
to fill needed work requirements that began on December 8. Railroad
bridges, The Narrows and Victorville Army Air Field all demanded
immediate attention. Russell Z. Smith, county chairman of the
Aircraft Warning Service, named Thomas Helland, Adelanto; Judge
W.E. Robinson, Oro Grande; C.H. Godshall, Apple Valley; Orlando
Jacobs, Lucerne Valley; and George Wondra, Victorville to supervisory
tasks. Hesperia and Phelan still weren't being heard from.
Women rushed to help as they could. One
totally feminine effort was made when Miss Ada Henry and Mrs.
Paul DeWitt of Victorville's Woman's Ambulance Corps, commandeered
parts of the Charles Tire shop to receive donated, used bed sheets
which were turned into life giving bandages.
Early in the war, counties supplied the
ways and means for listening posts. The state soon took over
this task under federal guidance. J.L. More, a "D"
Street druggist, was put in charge of the Valley's air raid warning
system. "Doc" More initiated changes locally giving
A.D. Frye, the water district night watchman, the 6:00 p.m. to
6:00 a.m. lookout shift. Others filled in between and around
those hours.
Fifty four Victorville volunteers received
new, prepared two weeks ahead assignments for two or more hours
with men on nights and the ladies, days. Senior Air Raid Wardens,
not watchers, were Lena Powell, Oro Grande; Fred Kretlow, Adelanto;
A.C. Ewing Lucerne Valley and Al Mendel for Apple Valley. While
no wardens are listed for Hesperia or Phelan, Victorville had
five; Imogene Hooks, Helen Turner, Helen Penn, plus Billie and
R. F. Rosso.
A front page story appearing in Cliff
Moon's Victor Valley News Herald on May 22, 1942, honored
civil defense workers by reporting "They wear no uniforms.
They probably will not march in a parade, nor is it likely that
their pictures will ever appear in the society pages of the daily
news papers. But to these unsung and unhonored "heroes"
of our war emergency, millions of other Californians should daily
give praise." Moon was writing about the citizens of the
Ground Observation Corps, people devoting their spare time that
the state not suffer the fate of Pearl Harbor as a result of
a surprise Japanese attack. Army circles reported the efforts
of civilian watch posts to have saved the armed forces from having
to make large increases in aircraft patrols over the Pacific
coastline, men and planes being vitally needed elsewhere.
The water district night watchman idea
proved faulty and within months, Victorville's Lions Club, a
service organization, voted to partly sponsor the community's
observation center. Lions sought doing the night operations by
assigning members or raising funds to hire a custodian. County
and state defense officials preferred volunteer workers and the
Lions proposal faded away.
Headlines in the Victor Valley News
Herald of October 8, 1943 revealed civilian aircraft watching
posts were being eliminated as a man power conservation measure.
Instead of full time deployment, posts would be serviced several
hours weekly to keep the organization together. Two weeks later,
E.J. Burger, assistant director for San Bernadino aircraft observation
services, at a Green Spot luncheon, reported on the status of
Victor Valley's listening/seeing posts. He said no observers
were on duty but everyone was subject to being called back as
needed. Burger warned the war wasn't over and a Japanese air
attack on the west coast was a possibility. "V.J. Day",
it turned out, was still one year and ten months away.
The following tales, censurable if told
in war time, come from a few of the many who five decades ago
served here both courageously and honorably:
Evelyn Powell,
88, on duty atop Victorville Hill, saw a weird looking air ship
silently zeroing in on her post. She quickly reported her sighting
learning afterwards her attacker had been a lost army training
glider from Twenty Nine Palms flown by a very confused student
pilot.
Brothers Dick and George Garrison
took stints as spotters near where the Victorville Hospital and
water tank now stand. An unnamed but very busy dirt road some
called "Lover's Lane" passed near the watchers post
which was supplied with a shack furnished with two chairs, a
table and one telephone.
Jack Seals,
68 retired George AFB fire chief whose father commanded the local
Company K, 3rd Regiment of the California State Guard, as a teenager
"spotted" at the Victorville site as well. He joked
should enemy planes pass over, he'd knock 'em down with rock
throwing, there being no other weaponry in the vicinity.
Winnie Jess Simpson, an Apple Valley Jess Ranch child then, calls
to mind her mother Winifred Jess and grandmother Frances Winkler
often motoring to GAFB doing volunteer defense chores. Her father,
Stoddard Jess was rebuked several times over turkey cage lights
shining brightly during some surprise black outs.
On the other side of Apple Valley, Eva
Conrad thinks emergency food supplies could have been stored
in an abandoned mine shaft. It is known civil defense items were
stockpiled there during the postwar atom bomb crisis.
A young Bob Dolch peddled his bike
up "Hospital Hill" to visit his father, Lee. Lee
Dolch along with Muriel Moon Kraft, Leland Butts,
Thelma Anthony, and many others volunteered their eyes
and ears often to keep America safe. Bob often visited African-American
army troops stationed near the Rainbow Bridge, fortified by sand
bags. These out of town soldiers replaced the earlier California
State Guardsman and kept tabs on the sabotage prone railroad
tracks across the desert and down Cajon Pass.
Ed Deutschmann,
81 smiles recalling Adelanto air raid warden Kretlow breaking
Loren Lutch's porch light during one black out. Lutch, elsewhere,
inadvertently left the light on. According to Ed, Lutch was "put
out" as well. Returning at dusk from Randsburg, Deutschmann
was stopped on highway 395 for using auto lights during a black
out. Later, he was able to buy cloth headlight hoods having slits
which allowed some light permitting dim out driving. Dim outs,
also called brown outs, tolerated reduced lighting for night
driving but not black outs.
Mirl Orebaugh,
then 22, spied Helendale skies from an air raid post above Charley
Burden's Route 66 store. Here, a chicken coop sized cabin with
chairs, table and phone sat down the hill from a darkened airway
beacon. Orebaugh's parents were observers also.
Hodge residents Margie and Charles
Van Rhyn, regularly came to Helendale helping there on the
midnight to dawn shift. Charles recalls the post's official World
War II name being "39 Ralph One".
Daggett historian Larry Alf watched
well attended air raid warden drills on that community's air
field. He says most Daggett homes used black out curtains and
had buckets of sand handy to use in case of an aerial bombing.
Household war time fire extinguishers were also prevalent but
he says, were about effective as a toy water pistol.
A civilian, war emergency roster of our
unsung, unpaid all weather volunteer Victor Valley patriots is
now being compiled. Little exists on these home town heroes whose
deeds must not remain untold nor they, unnamed. Anyone with data
on this subject is asked to send as they have to; John Swisher,
P.O. Box 400711 Hesperia, CA. 92340 or eall. (760) 244-7621.
When completed this register will be available free by mail or
at next years Helendale Rendezvous held annually on the last
Saturday of each September.
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